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Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

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Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Vietnam: 73-year-old Aussie drug mule has death penalty reduced to life

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Nguyen Thi Huong was sentenced to death for trafficking over a kilo of heroin.
Nguyen Thi Huong was sentenced to death for trafficking over a kilo of heroin.
An appeals court in Vietnam has commuted the death sentence of a 73-year-old Australian woman convicted of heroin trafficking.

The online state media outlet Vietnamnet quoted the People's High Court in Ho Chi Minh City as citing Nguyen Thi Huong's sincere confession and age for granting leniency. 

The sentence was reduced to life in prison at the appeals trial on Monday.

Court officials were not available for comment on Tuesday.

Huong was sentenced to death in June after being convicted of trafficking over a kilo of heroin.

She was arrested in December 2014 when checking in for a flight to Australia after the heroin was found hidden in 36 bars of soap in her luggage.

The court originally ruled that the offence was "extremely dangerous to the community" and found her guilty. 

She would have faced death by lethal injection.

Huong has always maintained her innocence saying the bars of soap were given to her and she planned to take them back to Australia as gifts for family not knowing what was inside.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws where trafficking even small amounts of heroin is punishable by death.

Source: ntnews.com.au, November 22, 2016

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