VIETNAM: DEATH ROW INMATE FOUND PREGNANT, 4 OFFICERS SUSPENDED

February 16, 2016: Four corrections officers were suspended in northern Vietnam after a death-row inmate became pregnant in an apparent attempt to avoid the death penalty, news reports said.
Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, a convicted drug trafficker sentenced to death in 2014, is expected not to be executed when she gives birth in April, Thanh Nien newspaper reported.
Under Vietnamese law, pregnant women or mothers of children younger than three cannot be executed. If a death sentence has already been handed down, the punishment must be reduced to life imprisonment.
Hue spent 50 million dong (around US$2,200, RM9,115) to buy sperm from another inmate at the prison in Quang Ninh province, investigators said. She became pregnant after inseminating herself with a syringe.
A spokesman from Quang Ninh's provincial police could not be reached for comment.
Such tactics to escape execution are not without precedent in Vietnam, Thanh Nien reported.
In 2007, two corrections officers were imprisoned after being convicted of allowing an inmate to impregnate a condemned drug trafficker.
The plan succeeded, and inmate Nguyen Thi Oanh escaped execution after giving birth. (Sources: DPA, 16/02/2016)