The Barlow and Chambers execution refers to the hanging in 1986 by Malaysia of two Australian citizens, Kevin John Barlow and Brian Geoffrey Chambers of Perth, Western Australia, for the drug trafficking of 141.9 g of heroin.
The two men became the first Westerners to be executed under Malaysia's new tougher laws for drug offences that prescribe death for anyone convicted of having over 15 grams of heroin. Barlow was born in the UK in Stoke-on-Trent and held dual British and Australian nationalities. Barlow's family made appeals to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to make a protest about the impending execution, and an appeal for clemency to the Malaysian government from Australian politician Bill Hayden was made. The executions caused public outcry and strained political relations between Australia and Malaysia at the time.
Read more about Barlow And Chambers Execution: Background, Planning, Drug Trafficking, Arrest, Imprisonment On Remand, Original Trial, Appeal, Death, Political Statements, Aftermath, Dramatisations
Famous quotes containing the words chambers and/or execution:
“Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)