Singapore shrugs off UN criticism on hanging

"Singapore maintains that capital punishment is a criminal justice issue," a foreign ministry spokesman said.

"It is the sovereign right of every country to decide whether or not to include capital punishment within its criminal justice system."

Philip Alston, from the UN Human Rights Commission's watchdog on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, urged Singapore to stop the planned hanging of Hguyen, who was convicted of smuggling heroin.

He said the problem in the case lay in mandatory sentencing rules that required the death penalty to be imposed in trafficking cases.

"Making such a penalty mandatory -- thereby eliminating the discretion of the court -- makes it impossible to take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a particular case," Alston said.