Singapore, Ignoring Protests, Hangs Maid -- Filipina Convicted In Double Murder

SINGAPORE - Ignoring pleas and protests, Singapore today hanged a Filipino maid convicted of a double murder, bringing renewed criticism of its strict criminal justice system.

Flor Contemplacion, 42, was executed at dawn at Changi prison for the 1991 murders of Della Maga - also a Filipino maid - and the woman's young charge, Nicholas Huang.

Contemplacion, who was convicted last April, claimed she was coerced into confessing. The Philippines asked Singapore to delay the execution long enough to review new evidence, but the government said the purported evidence was false.

Anger swept the Philippines at the news of the hanging. Leftist and feminist groups, human rights activists and the media denounced Singapore as a barbaric, tyrannical and totalitarian state with no respect for human rights. Catholic Church officials called Singapore a state without mercy.

"It's all over, it's all over. Now they have got an innocent person," cried Romeo Capulong, a Filipino human-rights lawyer who camped in Singapore, campaigning vigorously to save Contemplacion during the past week.

"We are not absolving Flor," said Lito Atienza, the vice mayor of Manila, the Philippine capital. "What we wanted was a retrial."

The case focused new attention on Singapore's uncompromising laws that came into the limelight when U.S. teenager Michael Fay was flogged for vandalism despite a mercy plea by President Clinton and when Dutchman Johannes van Damme was hanged on drug charges in September despite pleas from the Netherlands and human-rights groups.

In Singapore, Contemplacion's lawyers unsuccessfully tried until the last hours to delay the execution.

At least two maids came forward this week to suggest that the 4-year-old boy drowned during an epileptic fit in a bathtub and that his enraged father killed Maga.

In a statement Wednesday, the government rejected the allegations but did not specify how the claims were reviewed.

Singapore displayed unprecedented security during the hanging. Eight policemen, including two armed with machine guns and wearing flak jackets, stood outside the prison gates with two dogs.

Police cars and motorcycles patrolled the street continuously, apparently to deter any possible protest by the estimated 75,000 Filipino maids working in Singapore. But there was no trouble.

Filipino maids, most of them poorly educated, form the bulk of domestic help in this city-state of 3.3 million people. Their wages are lower than those of local workers for equivalent work, but substantially higher than they would get at home.

Reporters are not allowed at Singapore executions and Contemplacion's family was not present. Contemplacion's four children saw her yesterday afternoon and flew back to Manila. Her husband remained in Manila, worried that the stress of seeing his wife in prison might make him violent, Capulong said.

About 30 people have been hanged for murder in Singapore since 1990. The Philippines restored capital punishment in 1993, but there have been no executions.

Singapore has defended its strict judicial system by arguing that Americans and other Westerners do not understand "Asian culture," described as placing greater emphasis on the rights of the community over the individual.