Editor's Notes: Nguyen Tuong Van, the 25-year old Vietnamese-Australian who was convicted of drug smuggling through Singapore, was subsequently hanged on December 2, 2005. Despite international pleas for leniency, the Singaporean authorities proceeded with the execution. See the November and December Archives of the FAIRBANK REPORT for extensive coverage.
After the pleas and tears
for Nguyen, a new beginning
THE AGE, Melbourne
May 1, 2006
By Steve Butcher
IN Singapore he stepped in to lead the emotional fight to save the life of Nguyen Tuong Van, alongside Melbourne barristers Lex Lasry and Julian McMahon. Now Joseph Thesiera's career has come full circle — thanks to the warm embrace of his new Australian legal mates.
It's the morning after Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van was executed in December, and his exhausted friends and legal team slump in the foyer of a Singapore hotel.
Some scan Nguyen's writings or gaze at his sketches collected from his death row cell in Changi Prison, others clutch his last, unopened letters.
Barrister Lex Lasry, QC, consoles Nguyen's Singapore lawyer, Joseph Thesiera, as he reads their client's diary.
Tears dampen the numbness as everyone tries to focus on flights home and a funeral and their lives continuing after years fighting for Nguyen's. Mr Thesiera last week ended a long journey — and began another — with his admission as an Australian lawyer in a ceremony at Victoria's Supreme Court.
That Mr Lasry moved his admission rang with irony as Mr Thesiera had similarly appeared for him in 2003 when the Queen's counsel applied for temporary admission to the Singapore bar to act for Nguyen.
After opposition from the local law society and the Attorney-General, the High Court refused the application. Mr Thesiera later acted as lead counsel at Nguyen's trial.
There were no such objections when Mr Thesiera, 41, stood before Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, Court of Appeal president Justice Chris Maxwell and Justice Peter Buchanan in the packed Banco Court.
"The court wishes you well in the journey that lies ahead," Chief Justice Warren told Mr Thesiera and other candidates who included the niece of Judge Frank Shelton of the County Court, the daughters of three lawyers, and journalist Michael Magazanik.
It is only the third time in more than 30 years that Mr Lasry has moved an admission.
"I just don't do it for anyone," the eminent lawyer said. "But we (who represented Nguyen) have all become great mates. I love Joe. He'll become a great asset to the legal profession."
When Mr Thesiera's master, Ramanathan Palakrishnan — Singapore's famous defence counsel — died suddenly in 2003, Mr Lasry, fellow barrister Julian McMahon and solicitor Theo Magazis turned to Mr Thesiera.
When they did, and unbeknown to them, they put Mr Thesiera in a bind, he had already begun steps to move to Australia with his wife, Sharon, and their daughters.
Mr McMahon said: "It made it hard for him. What does he do? Refuse the brief or make all the applications to change countries and possibly jeopardise that by acting in a potentially explosive matter? Being the man he is he took the brief and was prepared to wear whatever consequences might flow from it."
Many months of unpaid work followed as Mr Thesiera, who had studied law in Singapore and England, helped defend Nguyen who faced execution under Singapore's mandatory death penalty for importing heroin.
In eight years, he and Mr Palakrishnan had saved just two of more than a dozen clients from the gallows. "I was a pupil of Pala's when I did my first death penalty case and his advice was never to get emotionally involved, but I always found that hard to do," Mr Thesiera said.
Nguyen's case has affected him more than any other. Mr Lasry recalled "Van adored Joseph who was like a brother to him".
Mr Thesiera's career, personal life, religion and relationships have all been affected by Nguyen: "What I experienced in those last few days, and especially the morning of the execution, has not gone away."
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