Hanoi - A court in northern Vietnam sentenced eight people to death and 18 others to life imprisonment in a heroin trafficking case, police said Friday. The sentences brought the number of people sentenced to death for trafficking heroin in Vietnam to 44 in just one month.
The People's Court of Hanoi handed the death sentences to the ring's leaders Nguyen Thi My, 42, and Tran Huy Dong, 40, and six other accomplices in the nine-day trial that ended Thursday, according to Pham Van Chinh with the Anti-Narcotics Police.
The court also sentenced 18 ring members to life imprisonment and 11 others to between eight and 20 years in prison.
"They smuggled more than 35 kilograms of heroin from north-western provinces sharing borders with Laos to Vietnam from early 2005 to April 2006, when the ring was busted," Chinh said, adding that the ring even transported heroin by train to Ho Chi Minh City.
Trafficking 600 grams or more of heroin is punishable by death in Vietnam.
Vietnam has sentenced at least 118 people to death in 2007, including 85 for drug crimes.
