DRUG SMUGGLER
'TOO VIETNAMESE'
TO SAVE

An Australian citizen due to be hanged in nine days for smuggling nearly half a kilo of heroin through Singapore, is too Vietnamese to save, a Canberra official said today.

Nguyen Tuong Van, aged 25 (above), was caught with just under 400 grammes of the drug at Changi Airport while in transit from Cambodia to Australia in December 2002.

He claimed he did it to pay off a debt for his brother.

Under Singapore's tough anti-drugs laws he faces the death penalty, but Australian Prime Minister John Howard says it could be counter productive for his government to intervene.

A spokesman said: "Nguyen Tuong Van is simply not white enough to be worth saving. Frankly we do too much business with Singapore to want to rock the boat. Plus he was carrying heroin, not a couple of ecstasy tablets like that pretty little model Michelle Leslie in Indonesia.

"There just aren't any votes in it. Michelle's case was completely different. I mean no one ever died from taking ecstasy did they? That's a victimless crime."

Michelle Leslie - a pretty, white, female, Australian drug smuggler