Five sentenced to death in Vietnam over drug charges
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A court in northern Vietnam sentenced five men to death and four to life in prison for smuggling heroin, authorities said yesterday.
Four other defendants received 20-year prison sentences during the four-day trial that ended on Monday, an official at Bac Giang’s People Court said.
According to the indictment, the gang, led by a 50-year-old woman named Luu Thi Thuan, smuggled up 78 kilograms of heroin from September 2011 to June 2012, earning US$750,000 (Bt23 million).
Vietnam has not executed any prisoners since 2011 when it switched from using firing squads to lethal injections as it was not able to import the chemicals needed due to ban the EU imposed in an effort to push the country into abolishing capital punishment.
Though the government later announced it would produce the chemicals locally, it is still not clear when the lethal injections will start being used.
On July 8, the Vietnamese government said drug-related crimes were on the rise, up 120 per cent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.
Last week, a court in Hai Phong sentenced four men to death for smuggling drugs.
