Vietnam sentences 3 people to death, gives 6 life imprisonment for drug trafficking
HANOI - A court in northern Vietnam sentenced three people to death after convicting them of drug trafficking in one of the country's largest drug trafficking cases, a court official said Tuesday.
Six other defendants received life imprisonment for the same charges at the end of the two-month trial Monday in Tuyen Quang province, said court official Luong Thanh Huyen.
Tuyen Quang is some 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Hanoi.
Forty-one other defendants were given jail terms ranging from four to 16 years for involvement in the case, she said.
The defendants, including 14 police and border guard officials, were convicted of trading 68 guns and trafficking 796 kilograms (1,750 pounds) of opium and 3.1 kilograms (6.8 pounds) of heroin from Vietnam to neighboring China, the official said.
The convicted have 15 days to appeal.
The case was uncovered in December 2004 when two former border guards were caught with four guns in Hanoi, state media have reported.
They told police that they had bought the guns from a police officer who was in charge of a warehouse in Hanoi run by the Ministry of Public Security where broken police weapons were collected for repair, it said.
The arrest of a man accused of buying guns from the border officials led to the exposure of the major drug-trafficking ring, state media have said.
Private gun ownership is illegal in Vietnam, and it was unclear what the guns were used for.
Vietnam has one of the world's toughest drug laws. Possessing, trading or trafficking 600 grams (1.3 pounds) of heroin or 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of opium is punishable by firing squad or life imprisonment.
The Associated Press - December 25, 2006.
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