Vietnam sentences 17 to death in drugs trial
HANOI - A court in Vietnam sentenced 17 people to death and 10 to life in prison on Monday at the conclusion of the country’s largest ever heroin trafficking trial, a court official said. Nguyen Van Hai, the 44-year-old leader of the trafficking ring, was among those sentenced to death, Ly Ngoc Hai, a court officer in the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court, said. Hai’s deputy, Tran Van Le, who was the former chief of the anti-narcotics police force in Tuong Duong District of Nghe An Province, was also sentenced to death.
Police arrested Hai and Le in the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long in 2003, where they were found carrying weapons and forged identity cards. The men had operated a ring responsible for trafficking 824 kilograms of heroin into Vietnam from neighbouring Laos and Cambodia between 1998 and 2003. The ring is considered to be the largest ever to be prosecuted in Vietnam in terms of the volume of heroin trafficked.
Two defendants were given lesser sentences with Huynh Trong An, charged with trafficking heroin, given 20 years in prison, and Cambodian-Vietnamese Huynh Yen Peng, charged with illegally transporting currency across the border, sentenced to four years in prison, Ly Hai said.
Despite an ongoing “anti social evils” campaign against drug use, heroin is still widely available in Vietnam and intravenous heroin use is one of the major contributors to the countrys rate of HIV infection. Although not a major producer, Vietnam is a significant conduit for heroin originating from countries including Laos and Myanmar (Burma). Under Vietnam’s strict anti-narcotics laws, the death penalty is usually applied in cases involving more than 600 grams of heroin, although the law proscribes the death sentence can be applied in cases involving more than 100 grams.
Since the beginning of 2005, Vietnam has handed down 25 death penalties and executed five prisoners, according to confirmed statistics from state-run media. In 2004 Vietnam executed at least 63 people. More than 50 per cent of those executed had been convicted of drugs offences.
DPA - January 24, 2005
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