11 heroin smugglers get death

2007-11-30 13:32

Hanoi - A court in Hanoi has sentenced 11 people to death and seven others to life I prison in a drug trafficking case involving more than 437kg of heroin, an official said on Friday.

The three women and eight men, sentenced to die by the People's Court of Hanoi after an 11-day trial that ended on Thursday, belonged to the largest heroin trafficking ring ever discovered in Vietnam, according to Tran Quang Trong, head of the anti-narcotics force of Hanoi.

"This is the largest drug trafficking case ever, in terms of both the amount of heroin trafficked and the number of people sentenced to death," Trong said, adding that more accomplices of the ring have yet to be arrested.

The court sentenced seven other members of the ring to life imprisonment, three more to 20 years, and one to 18 months.

The ring distributed 437kg of heroin in the period between 2002 and March 2006, according to court documents.

The ring was first discovered in December 2004, when one of its members was caught in China's Guangxi province carrying 5.2kg of heroin in a suitcase she had brought from Vietnam.

Trafficking 600g or more of heroin is punishable by death in Vietnam.

Vietnam has sentenced at least 83 people to death since the beginning of this year, 52 of them for drug crimes. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA