Hanoi - A court in northern Vietnam has sentenced six men to death and two others to life imprisonment in a drug trafficking case involving more than 4.5 kilograms of heroin, a court official said Friday. The People's Court of Thanh Hoa province, 150 kilometers south of Hanoi, handed the sentences to the members of the heroin trafficking ring at the end of the three-day trial on Thursday, said the court's chief judge, Le Van Khang.
The ring smuggled 4.66 kilograms of heroin from the north-western province of Hoa Binh to Thanh Hoa province between December 2005 and March 2006, when it was busted, according to the judge.
"All the defendants pleaded guilty at the trial," Khang said. Under Vietnamese law, transporting, processing or producing 600 or more grams of heroin is subject to the death penalty.
The court also sentenced four other accomplices of the ring to between 16 and 24 years in prison.
Vietnam has sentenced at least 59 people to death since the beginning of this year, including 37 death sentences for drug trafficking.
