Van Nguyen: Why the Controversy?

Alright, I decided to add onto this Van Nguyen thing.
You may or may not know who he his. If you're an Australian, you would have to know, because it's been all over the news.
He's a drug-smuggler. He was caught (unfortunately) by the Singaporean police. Now, I say unfortunately not because I bought heroin from him, but because the Singaporean police are very harsh. Van Nguyen was an Australian citizen, so he would've been treated to a fair trial if he had been caught here.
So this Van Nguyen guy gets caught by one of the cruelest nations when it comes to criminals, and drug trafficking is a serious offense in Singapore. The trial he gets goes like this.

Speaker: Mr. Van Nguyen has been caught smuggling drugs.
Judge: Die.

So the other day Van Nguyen was hung at the Changi prison. Many mourners from his Vietnamese family attended a funeral service the day after.
However,
During his time in prison, waiting to be hung, Australia was in uproar. The government tried a prisoner-exchange with the Singaporeans, but it was declined. All over the radio, and the television, and in the newspapers, there were people spewing that Van Nguyen was to be hung.
Hello? Are we talking about the same person? He was caught committing a serious crime, which is one of the major contributing factors to our country's decline. If he was willing to do the crime, he must be willing to do the time. All the people at his funeral are just bullshitting when they say he was a good person. He imported/exported drugs, for Christ's sake! You're not a good person if you commit to that business.
Honestly, I can't see why everyone has a problem with him dying. It's his fault, he should've sorted it out himself.