Two get death sentence in Vietnam drug trial
HANOI - A Vietnamese court sentenced two men to
death Friday after the three-day trial of a drugs ring
accused of smuggling 106 kilogrammes of opium in from
Laos, court officials said.
The court in the northern town of Ninh Binh ordered
mastermind Tran Van Thanh and accomplice Chu Van
Khanh be executed, judge Dao Thi Tin told AFP.
Since 1997, possession of 100 grammes (three and a half
ounces) of heroin or five kilogrammes (11 pounds) of
opium has carried the death penalty here.
Two men were sentenced to life imprisonment while the
other 11 defendants received jail terms of between nine
months and 20 years, the judge said.
One of the other accused had already been sentenced to
death in an earlier trial.
The judge said the trial was the second biggest in the
history of the province, some 100 kilometres south of the
capital. The group were arrested in 1998 to 1999 and
charged with offences dating back to 1992.
In recent years Vietnam has faced a mounting influx of
opium and heroin from Laos, which the judge described
as "white death."
In the neighbouring province of Nam Dinh in June, a
record 11 people were sentenced to death in a drugs trial
described as the country's biggest ever, although one
later had his sentenced commuted.
But the authorities' widespread use of executions has
come in for mounting criticism abroad -- in April the
vice-president of the International Federation of the
Leagues of Human Rights, Vo Van Ai, raised the issue
with the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Last year a total of 194 people were sentenced to death,
76 of them for drug offences.
Agence France Presse - October 21, 2000.
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