Govt to ask Vietnam to spare drug runner
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will appeal to Vietnam's Government for clemency for an Australian facing a possible death sentence for heroin trafficking in Vietnam.
The appeal will be raised during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Hanoi in November, officials in Ho Chi Minh City said.
Huu Trinh, in his mid-50s, had his last appeal against the death sentence rejected by the Ho Chi Minh City Supreme Peoples Court in April.
The appeal followed Huu's sentencing to death in last December after his arrest with 1.9kg of heroin in December 2004 when he was caught in a taxi near the border of Cambodia.
The heroin was believed to have come from Laos within the Golden Triangle region of Burma, Laos and Thailand - via Cambodia.
At the time of Huu's arrest, three Vietnamese men were arrested as accomplices and were later sentenced to jail terms of between 15 years and life.
The appeal comes after Vietnam commuted the death sentence of another Australian man, Nguyen Van Chinh, 45, of Sydney in March this year to life imprisonment.
Another Australian, Mai Cong Thanh, also had his death sentence commuted to a life prison sentence in February.
Vietnam maintains one of the harshest drug trafficking laws in the world. Those convicted of possessing, trading or trafficking 600 grams of heroin or 20kg of opium face a death sentence.
But foreigners are rarely executed. In April 2000 a Canadian woman of Vietnamese origin, Nguyen Thi Hiep, was the first and so far the only Westerner to be executed for drug trafficking since 1975.
An Australian woman, Le My Linh, was later granted clemency by Vietnam's president after being sentenced to death in August 2002 on drug trafficking charges.
Australian Associated Press - October 17, 2006.
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