When we were young: Nguyen Tuong Van (right) with his brother Khoa. Photo: AAP

THE LITTLE twins smile happily for the camera, their young lives filled with endless possibilities.

Today one of them sits on death row, the other is in hiding — filled with despair over the loving brother whose life looks certain to be cut short on the gallows in Singapore.

The image of Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, and his brother, Khoa, was released by lawyers for Nguyen, who are fighting to save his life.

Nguyen was arrested in Singapore in 2002 carrying 396 grams of heroin. He told police he was acting as a courier for a Sydney drug syndicate to earn money to pay for his brother's legal debts.

Few people know where Khoa is today, but those who know him say he is devastated. The pair had been inseparable since arriving in Australia with their mother when they were four months old.

Nguyen's application for clemency was refused by Singapore's President S.R. Nathan on October 21. But friends and supporters have not given up hope.

Yesterday, supporters of the Reach Out campaign, set up by friends of Nguyen, gathered in Melbourne to sort through the thousands of letters of support.

Nguyen's tireless friends Kelly Ng and Bronwyn Lew had invited Australians to trace their hands on coloured paper, with the tracings to be sent to Mr Nathan.

The idea was inspired by the traced outline of Nguyen's hand, that he sent to his mother from Changi Prison. During hours of sorting yesterday in the chambers of Nguyen's lawyer, Julian McMahon, touching and surprising messages were revealed.

A boy from the Perth suburb of Morley wrote on his hand: "My name if Marcus and I am five. My mum told me that Nguyen's mum might not cuddle him again and that makes me sad. This is a good way for me to help."

A mother whose son's life "has been ruined because of heroin" pleaded for Nguyen's life. Another woman told how 10 years ago she lost her teenage son in a car accident. "My life ended on the same day," she tells Mr Nathan. "Please don't send Nguyen Tuong Van to the gallows. No mother on earth deserves to go through such pain. Please pardon him. I beg you in the name of my dead son."

There were a dozen traced hands belonging to inmates from the Dillwynia Women's Correctional Centre in NSW — "hope this reaches you in time" — and letters from universities, hospitals, schools, day-care centres, as well as from members of the armed forces and the son of a former royal commissioner.

• Nguyen Tuong Van Case Information

Melbourne man Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was caught at Changi airport in Singapore in 2002 smuggling 396 grams of heroin strapped to his body and in his hand luggage.

Gobind Singh, the son of lawyer Karpal Singh who defended Australian heroin trafficker Kevin Barlow, said there was almost no hope in saving Nguyen.

Barlow and co-accused Brian Chambers were hanged in Malaysia in July 1986 after being caught carrying 145 grams of heroin

Nguyen has been on death row since his sentencing in January 2004.

Court appeals and pleas to the Singapore Government for clemency have been unsuccessful.

Prime Minister John Howard has been urged to renew his appeals at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Joint Ministerial Meeting in South Korea this week.

Nguyen is expected to be hanged in Singapore in less than a fortnight.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said it was important Singaporeans understood how deeply Australians felt about the impending execution.

"I think while there's life there's hope and we've just got to keep up the steady pressure, the steady argument," Mr Beazley said.

"It is just not in the interests of Singapore and the relationship between us, for this execution to go ahead."

Meanwhile Mr Singh said Nguyen's chances were slim.

"Honestly, the chances (for Nguyen) are very, very bleak," he told ABC radio.

"Usually after the petition for clemency fails, then there's really not much else that can be done.

"Of course the lawyers are still at liberty to file applications to try and stay execution on any points of law that they can think of which might assist.

"But even then such points of law are difficult to find and, secondly, even if one finds an argument, it's very difficult to convince a court that any execution should be stayed."

Mr Singh said the constitutionality of the death penalty had been tested but it was unlikely to be overturned.

"The fact remains that Parliament has the power to make such laws and if Parliament decides to make such laws then the courts have to oblige," he said.

He said if the Barlow and Chambers case was heard today he believed they would be spared the death penalty.

"The law as it stands today has developed a lot more," he said.

Van Nguyen, 25, caught smuggling about 400 grams of heroin into Singapore's Changi airport in 2002, is expected to be executed some time this month.

Singapore has rejected appeals for clemency.

Nguyen's mother Kim says she is angry at her son's actions, but says he does not deserve to die.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I feel embarrassed. I feel horrible with this."

Kim Nguyen says she is comforted by the level of support she has received from the community, but is calling on Australians to maintain the pressure to save her son's life.

"The Australian people have to put more pressure to ask the government in Singapore to please give him forgiveness," she said.

"He is a young man. It's not like, one mistake and kill him. That's not fair to me. That's not good."

Singapore's Prisons Department has drawn a veil of silence over the impending execution of convicted Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van.

Today it rebuffed inquiries about how it handles final arrangements for death row inmates.

Its refusal to detail standard practices for executions in the city-state echoed a decision midweek from the government, which offered no new response to a complaint filed with the UN by local anti-death penalty activists.

The controversial case has also received scant attention in Singapore's print and broadcast media, which has strong links to the government and is broadly supportive of its policies.

Nguyen, 25, was arrested carrying almost 400 grams of heroin at Singapore's Changi airport while in transit from Cambodia to Australia in 2002.

All pleas for clemency have been rejected, and the chances of a reprieve appear very slim.

Nguyen's lead lawyer in Australia Lex Lasry said he expected that Nguyen would be hanged in "three or four weeks", although activists here had incorrectly feared that he could be put to death as soon as today.

Singapore's Prisons Department refused to say today whether death row inmates such as Nguyen are offered a final meal, who attends executions, and how many prisoners remain on death row.

The department can oversee the execution of as many as 50 inmates a year.

Human rights group Amnesty International has said the city-state probably executes more prisoners than any other country worldwide relative to its size.

According to official figures, 340 people were hanged in Singapore between 1991 and 2000.

Nguyen's case has not received much media coverage locally, and what reporting there has been has sometimes been out of date.

The Straits Times, the main English-language daily, reported on Wednesday about a rare gathering of anti-death penalty activists that happened on Monday. The item was run as a brief.

There has, however, been a handful of letters to the press from both Singaporeans and Australians.

Jonathan Ariel from New South Wales wrote to the Straits Times last month that "countless Australians have disgraced themselves attacking Singapore" over the case.

Writing to Today, a local tabloid, Jacqueline Tan, said this week the Australians case was "tragic", but she did not urge clemency.

A comment piece in today's The Straits Times offered no debate about the merits of capital punishment, but argued that opponents of the practice needed to defend child killers and terrorists to be consistent and credible.

AAP