Vietnam court sentences 27 to death for smuggling over 600 kg of narcotics

A court in Vietnam sentenced 27 people to death on Friday after finding them guilty of trafficking more than 600 kilos of narcotics including heroin, ketamine and methamphetamine, state media reported

A court in Vietnam sentenced 27 people to death on Friday after finding them guilty of trafficking more than 600 kilos of narcotics including heroin, ketamine and methamphetamine, state media reported.

Gang leader and notorious female crime boss Vu Hoang Anh, alias Oanh Ha, was among those condemned to death, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.

The 35-member ring smuggled 626 kilos (1,380 pounds) of drugs from Cambodia into Vietnam between March 2018 and November 2022, the paper said, citing the court ruling.

The eight members not sentenced to die were given jail terms ranging from 20 years to life, after a four-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City.

The court said the case involved a particularly serious cross-border drug trafficking operation over a long period of time, Tuoi Tre reported.

The suspects used social media networks such as Signal, adopting nicknames like “Colombia” and “Mosscau” or “Mosscau Russia” to avoid detection.

To ensure secrecy in their operations, the network used messaging app Signal and phone numbers from the United States or Cambodia to communicate about the drug transactions.

The 67-year-old Oanh Ha was given amnesty in 2009 from a previous 20-year jail sentence on drug trafficking charges.

She was jailed several times later for different or similar crimes.

Tough drug laws

According to the court, Oanh led the defendants in successfully transporting and trafficking 626 kilos of drugs from Cambodia for consumption in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and other cities of Vietnam.

Investigators have determined that the total amount of money involved in the network was around $54.8 million.

The indictment said that from early 2020 onwards, Oanh transferred up to $20,000 per trip to traffickers who transported the drugs concealed in cars or engine blocks.

A total of 129 engine blocks were smuggled successfully from Cambodia to Vietnam, Tuoi Tre said.

Communist Vietnam has some of the toughest drug laws in the world, and is notoriously secretive about its executions.

There is no indication when the executions would be carried out.

Vietnamese courts routinely hand out death sentences for drug convictions, and the country is a leading executioner globally, according to Amnesty International.

The country is close to the “Golden Triangle” drug-producing region where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet, with Vietnamese police saying Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly becoming a hub for traffickers as transport infrastructure has improved in recent years.

Anyone caught with more than 600 grams (21 ounces) of heroin or more than 2.5 kilos of methamphetamine can face the death penalty.

A 2021 Amnesty International report said partial disclosures by authorities “indicated that hundreds of people continued to be sentenced to death yearly”.

Many face long spells in detention before they are executed, with information about their trials and deaths scarce.

Since 2013, Vietnam has carried out death sentences by lethal injection, replacing executions by firing squads.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, December 27, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Instagram | Telegram | Contact Us

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

Kansas AG urges governor to deny clemency to 8 sentenced to death

TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach on Tuesday urged the governor to deny clemency to Kansas inmates who have been sentenced to death. Eight of nine people sentenced to death in Kansas formally filed clemency requests in May, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office. Kobach urged Gov. Laura Kelly to reject them.

Alabama | Judge bars nitrogen gas execution, says method is unconstitutionally cruel

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas after declaring it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Emily Marks issued the ruling hours after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional. Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas. He was scheduled to be executed Thursday. The decision, for now, blocks the use of the controversial new execution method that the state has championed since 2024, but the issue will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Idaho will soon turn to firing squad executions. Police will pull the triggers

Trained members of Idaho law enforcement with demonstrated firearms proficiency are expected to fill slots for carrying out the death penalty by firing squad as the state prison system transitions to the controversial execution method next month. Six volunteers certified for no less than three years apiece through Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, will be recruited to ensure the Idaho Department of Correction is ready to comply with a state law that prioritizes shooting prisoners to death over lethal injection starting July 1. No one on the team may have faced disciplinary action over firearms, use of force, or related conduct over the prior year, according to new execution protocols the prison system released this week.

SCOTUS: Alabama can’t execute Jeffery Lee by nitrogen; Thursday execution called off

After a week of legal volleyball, Alabama death row inmate Jeffery Lee’s execution—scheduled for Thursday evening—was called off after federal courts called the state’s nitrogen gas execution method “likely unconstitutional.” The state took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping Lee could still be put to death tonight. In an order issued at 8:10 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that it would not lift a ban on Alabama executing Lee via nitrogen . In a short court order, the justices denied Alabama’s motion to go ahead with the execution. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the appeal and let the execution proceed, according to the order.

US | Army lays groundwork for death row executions if Trump gives approval

The Army is preparing to carry out the executions of the military's four death-row inmates if ordered to do so by the president, according to an internal planning document reviewed by ABC News. If carried out, it would mark the first time the military executed convicted American inmates in more than a half-century The plan, dubbed "Operation Resolute Justice" and issued internally in February, directs Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of non-military federal executions during President Donald Trump's first term.

With nitrogen gas blocked, Alabama seeks to execute inmate by lethal injection

Jeffery Lee, who successfully challenged his scheduled Thursday execution by nitrogen gas, argued that execution by firing squad would be less painful. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Friday sought to put an Alabama death row inmate to death by lethal injection a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the state’s attempt to execute him by nitrogen gas. In a filing with the Alabama Supreme Court Friday afternoon, the state sought an expedited motion to set a new execution date for Jeffery Lee, 49. The state said that with a permanent injunction in place against nitrogen gas, the method by which the state intended to execute Lee on Thursday, it could execute him by lethal injection or the electric chair.

Texas | Tanner Horner now incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner has now taken up residence in one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury last month. Horner is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state's death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells. The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison on May 5 within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Texas | Death Row Inmate Gets Resentenced to Life

Harris County district judge recommends compassionate release for Clarence Jordan A 1977 convenience store robbery that resulted in a clerk’s death landed Clarence Jordan on Texas Death Row, where he remained for decades even though he was declared incompetent for execution. On Monday, a judge recommended that the disabled man be released. Harris County District Court Judge Katherine Thomas resentenced Jordan to life with the possibility of parole and suggested that he be considered for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision program, also known as compassionate release.

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog