VIETNAM SENTENCES 8 DRUG TRAFFICKERS, PRODUCERS TO DEATH

January 29, 2007: a Vietnamese court handed down eight death sentences and 13 life imprisonment on local people on drugs charges.
The People's Court of northern Son La province passed the death sentences on Trinh Nguyen Thuy, Le Van Tinh, Dang Van Au, Vu Hong Diep, Ngo Trung Hieu, Pham Xuan Tho, Nguyen Xuan Thanh and Pham Khac Hung, and imprisonment sentences of 0.5-33.5 years on 10 other people.
Trinh Nguyen Thuy, born in 1958, arrested in August 2005 when he was director of a local company, and his accomplices were accused of trading 216 kg of heroin and 199 kg of opium in the province, and producing 44 kg of heroin in Hanoi capital and northern Bac Ninh province. (Sources: Xinhua, 30/01/2007)