HONG KONG,Dec. 12 -- The Singapore government notified the family of a convicted Hong Kong drug smuggler Monday that 25-year-old Angel Mou Pui-peng will be hanged Dec. 23. In a telegram to the woman's family in Hong Kong, the superintendent of the Moon Crescent Prison in Singapore said Mou could receive visitors starting Dec. 20 and her body could the claimed the same day as the scheduled execution.
The case of Mou, who was arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport Aug. 29., 1991 with a suitcase containing 12.3 pounds (5.6 kg) of heroin, has received widespread publicity in Hong Kong and the nearby Portuguese enclave of Macao, where she was born. Mou, who has a 9-year-old son, claimed she did not know the false- bottom suitcase contained heroin and thought she was carrying contraband Rolex wristwatches to Amsterdam for a Hong Kong-based syndicate. Following appeals, Mou was sentenced to death in April 1993. Singapore officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the decision to go ahead with the execution two days before Christmas. The president of Portugal, Mario Soares, in November appealed to the Singapore government for clemency for Mou, who carries a Portuguese passport. Portugal abolished the death penalty in the mid-19th century. Singapore law mandates the death penalty for drug trafficking and routinely rejects clemency appeals.
