SYDNEY, Australia -- Singapore hanged young Australian drug smuggler Tuong Van Nguyen at 6 a.m. Friday (2200 GMT Thursday), despite widespread condemnation in Australia.
"The sentence was carried out this morning at Changi Prison," the Home Affairs Ministry said in an e-mailed statement, The Associated Press reported.
Church bells tolled in Nguyen's home city of Melbourne at 9 a.m. Friday, the scheduled time of his execution. Vigils were held in other Australian cities.
On Thursday, the Australian government had dropped diplomacy and called Singapore's plan to hang Van Nguyen "barbaric."
Nguyen's mother, Kim Nguyen, was able to hold hands and touch her son's face during her last visit to see him on Thursday.
An Australian television reporter on the scene at Changi jail told CNN on Friday morning that Nguyen's brother Khoa and friends were allowed into the jail to be close to Nguyen at the time of his execution.
Nguyen was the first Australian executed overseas for 12 years.
Australia had repeatedly sought clemency for Nguyen, 25, who was convicted of smuggling 400 grams (0.9 lb) of heroin from Cambodia through Singapore's Changi airport in 2002.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock criticized the imposition of the death penalty, especially in Nguyen's case which he said had mitigating circumstances -- Nguyen said he smuggled the drugs to try and pay off loan-shark debts for his brother in Australia.
"It was a mandatory death sentence. We feel most remorseful this is going to happen," Ruddock told Australian television ahead of the apparent execution.
"It's a most unfortunate, barbaric act that is occurring."
In 1986, then-prime minister Bob Hawke caused a huge rift with Malaysia that lasted a decade when he called the hanging that year of two Australian drug smugglers "barbaric."
Singapore is one of Australia's strongest allies in Asia and Australian Prime Minister John Howard has rejected calls for trade and military boycotts over the execution.
Howard did, however, make five personal pleas to Singapore and his foreign and justice ministers also called for clemency. But the city-state stood firm, saying it would not allow Singapore to be used as a transit for illicit drugs.
Many Australians held candle-lit vigils for Nguyen on the eve of his execution,
But a survey showed Australia was divided over the punishment..
A survey by Morgan Poll conducted on Wednesday night showed 47 percent of Australians believed Nguyen should be executed, 46 percent said the death penalty should not be carried out, and seven percent were undecided.
Australia abolished the death penalty decades ago. The last man hanged in Australia was convicted murderer Ronald Ryan who was hanged in a Melbourne prison in 1967.
Ready to die
On Thursday, Nguyen's lawyer, Lex Lasry, told Australian television from Singapore that Nguyen was "ready to die".
"He's in very good shape emotionally, physically, spiritually, and his courage and his fortitude through all this, particularly in the last few weeks, makes our role much easier," said Lasry.
"He has little concern for himself. He has a great insight into his situation and he is, in fact, ready to die," he said.
Some 420 people have been hanged in Singapore since 1991, mostly for drug trafficking, an Amnesty International 2004 report said. That gives the country of 4.4 million people the highest execution rate in the world relative to population.
Opponents of the death penalty say support for capital punishment is weakening around the world. But at least 3,797 people were executed in 2004, according to Amnesty figures, which the group says is the second-highest number recorded since it started monitoring executions 25 years ago.
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