Hanoi- A court in Vietnam has sentenced two ethnic minority villagers to death and 14 others to prison for smuggling heroin, a court official said Monday. An official at the court in the north-western province of Dien Bien, which borders Laos, said the villagers were members of the Black Thai ethnic minority. He said they had smuggled some 1.7 kilograms of heroin, both for sale and for their own use, between March and May of 2006, when they were arrested.
"All of the 16 convicted were from the same village, and many of them were related to each other," said Pham Van Nam, the court's chief administrator. "They were all drug addicts."
The court handed down its verdict on Sunday after a four-day trial. Ringleaders Luong Van Phong and Lo Van Tinh received the death penalty.
Seven villagers were sentenced to life in prison, and three others to 20 years. The rest received sentences ranging from one to nine years.
Court administrator Nam said the villagers had pooled their savings and purchased between 3,000 and 4,500 US dollars worth of heroin at a time in neighbouring Laos. He said they had been arrested after a tip-off from a local drug user.
Despite having some of the world's strongest anti-drug legislation, Vietnam has a growing heroin epidemic, especially among the country's ethnic minorities. Domestic opium poppy production has been eradicated, and most of the country's heroin is now imported from Laos.
According to the UN Office on Drug and Crime, the mountainous provinces of Dien Bien and Son La, bordering Laos, have the country's highest rates of heroin abuse, with the problem growing fastest among young people.
