AUSTRALIA: LABOR CAMPAIGNS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY FOR BALI BOMBERS

the Australian Labor Party attacked Prime Minister John Howard for supporting the death penalty for the Bali bombers as it launched a campaign to stop all executions in Asia. Mr McClelland criticised the Prime Minister for supporting "the executions of the perpetrators of the Bali bombings, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein", while continuing to state that "Australia opposed capital punishment". He said Mr Howard's contradictory attitude to the death penalty was highlighted when Bali bomber Amrozi bin Nurhasyim was condemned to death in 2005, about the time young Australian Tuong Van Nguyen was executed in Singapore for drug offences. Mr Howard did not criticise the death penalty for the Bali bombers but the Australian Government unsuccessfully campaigned to stop the execution of Nguyen. Labor foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland pledged a Labor government would start a regional campaign with Cambodia, Nepal, Bhutan, East Timor and The Philippines against state executions in Asian countries such as China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.