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Japan | Hakamada found religion, but then felt under attack by ‘the devil’

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Editor's note: This is the last in a four-part series on letters that Iwao Hakamada wrote while on death row. About a decade after cursing God, Iwao Hakamada was baptized Catholic at the Tokyo Detention House on Dec. 24, 1984. “Since I have been given the Christian name Paul, I am keenly feeling that I should be aware of the greatness of Paul.” (June 1985)

Vietnam school teacher gets death sentence for drug trafficking

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Meth pills
A school teacher in northern Vietnam has received the death penalty for drug trafficking, state media reported Wednesday.

Vu Ba Xenh, 40, was arrested in June 2018 in Nghe An province with 15 kilograms of drugs following a police shootout, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

On the day of his arrest, Xenh, who was offered 200 dollars to transport drugs around Nghe An, had been meeting smugglers on the Vietnamese side of a forested border area to transport the drugs onward within Vietnam, but the group was intercepted by police.

Although Xenh was successfully apprehended, other members of the group opened fire on the police and fled.

2 police officers were shot, with one permanently confined to a wheelchair as a result of his injuries.

Police found 20 packages of heroin, 7 kilograms of methamphetamine and 12,000 pills of an undisclosed "synthetic" drug at the scene, including the 15 kilograms of drugs found on Xenh's person, as well as 1 gun. 

While it was unclear from the court ruling the type of drugs specifically found on Xenh, trafficking more than 100 grams of either meth or heroin warrants the death penalty in Vietnam.

Source: gulf-times.com, January 15, 2019


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Vietnam
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