FEATURED POST

U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

Published
Image
Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 

Vietnam sentences Australian to death

Published
September 18, 2007

An Australian man of Vietnamese origin has been sentenced to death for heroin trafficking in a Ho Chi Minh City court, a court official said.

Tony Manh, 40, of NSW, was convicted of trafficking 0.948 kilograms of heroin at the one-day trial, Phan Tanh, deputy head of the People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City, said.

Manh was sentenced to death and ordered to pay a fine of 50 million dong ($A3,755).

Manh was arrested in March after security officers at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City found the drugs hidden on his body as he was about to board a plane to Sydney.

The official Vietnam News Agency reported that Manh was paid $US10,000 ($A12,020) by a Vietnamese to smuggle the drug into Australia.

The counsellor at Australia's Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Graham Pearce, said a representative from the consulate attended the trial, but declined to comment.

Tanh said the court would put on trial two other Australians of Vietnamese origin on Thursday, also on charges of heroin trafficking.

There was no suggestion the cases were connected to Manh's.

"Recently, the fact that many Australians of Vietnamese descent are involved in trafficking heroin from Vietnam to Australia has become a phenomenon," Tanh said.

"City authorities have been trying their best to stop this practice."

Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been arrested for trafficking heroin to Australia from Vietnam in recent years and at least five were sentenced to death.

None of the sentences have yet been carried out.

In May, a Vietnamese Australian on a Sydney-bound plane vomited a nylon bag of white powder suspected to be heroin, causing the plane to return to Vietnam.

At the same airport in Ho Chi Minh City in February, an Australian woman was arrested after being caught with 1.5kg of heroin in her luggage.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws.

Possessing, trading or trafficking more than 600g of heroin or 20kg of opium is punishable by death or life in prison.

About 100 people are sentenced to death in Vietnam each year for drug-related offences.
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

U.S. | 'I comfort death row inmates in their final moments - the execution room is like a house of horrors'

Published
Image
Reverend Jeff Hood, 40, wants to help condemned inmates 'feel human again' and vows to continue his efforts to befriend murderers in spite of death threats against his family A reverend who has made it his mission to comfort death row inmates in their final days has revealed the '"moral torture" his endeavor entails. Reverend Dr. Jeff Hood, 40, lives with his wife and five children in Little Rock, Arkansas. But away from his normal home life, he can suddenly find himself holding the shoulder of a murderer inside an execution chamber, moments away from the end of their life. 
Read more

Iran Executes Prisoner in Front of Seven-year-old Son

Published
Image
The Islamic Republic's judiciary has executed one more prisoner amid a surge in the death penalty. Nategh Hosseini was executed at Qazvin Central Prison on Saturday, reportedly in the presence of his seven-year-old son.  According to the Iran Human Rights Organization, Hosseini had been arrested three years ago on charges of alleged murder and subsequently sentenced to death.
Read more

Texas Executes Ramiro Gonzales

Published
Image
Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales on Wednesday despite a stunning reversal from a psychiatrist who helped send him to death row 17 years ago.  Gonzales, 41, was killed by lethal injection as punishment for kidnapping, raping and murdering Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. At the time, Gonzales was struggling with drug addiction. He killed Townsend, his drug dealer’s girlfriend, while trying to steal drugs. He had turned 18 two months before the killing, making him barely old enough to be legally eligible to be sentenced to death.
Read more

Governor, AG push for Indiana’s first execution since 2009

Published
Image
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is one of 27 states where state-backed executions are still legal, but no one has been put to death in a Hoosier prison in 15 years. Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Todd Rokita look to change that. On Wednesday, Rokita’s office filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court seeking to set a date for the execution of Joseph Corcoran — a Fort Wayne man found guilty of murdering four people in 1997.
Read more

Oklahoma prepares to kill another man who says he's innocent

Published
Image
Richard Rojem’s death sentence was twice overturned by appellate courts, but his conviction itself has never been fully revisited. RICHARD ROJEM JR. had 20 minutes to address the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Wearing a maroon prison uniform, he raised his cuffed right hand and swore to tell the truth, then gave his pitch for why his life should be spared. It would take less than 90 seconds.
Read more

Florida | Jury recommends death penalty for man who killed five women in Florida bank

Published
Image
Judge to decide fate of ex-prison guard trainee Zephen Xaver, who pleaded guilty to 2019 execution-style murders A jury on Wednesday recommended a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago. Jurors voted 9-3 to recommend Zephen Xaver, 27, receive the death penalty for the 23 January 2019 murders at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 85 miles (135km) south-east of Tampa.
Read more