Death Penalty News

The Vientiane Provincial People’s Court has sentenced four defendants in separate criminal cases involving drug trafficking, drug possession, and illegal firearms, handing down penalties that include one life sentence and one death penalty. According to the Vientiane Provincial Public Prosecutor’s Office, the verdicts were issued on 31 December 2025. In one case, Kong, a 33-year-old farmer from Naphong Village in Hin Heup district, was arrested on 26 February 2025 for trafficking 1,428 methamphetamine tablets. The court sentenced her to 10 years in prison and imposed a fine of LAK 100 million (around USD 4,600).

George Wilson, 23, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is said to have received 9.15kg of methamphetamine from another Briton at a hotel in the red-light area of Bangkok on Monday evening. But vice squad cops are said to have been tipped off about the movements of the drugs gang. Officers swooped on the hotel room at Le Fenix on Sukhumvit Soi 11 and arrested George. In the arrest video, George was heard telling police he had been in Thailand for 'two weeks'. When asked what is in the bag, he says 'I don't know'.

Laos retains the death penalty for various offenses, including drug trafficking, murder, and treason. However, executions have not been carried out since 1989, making the country abolitionist in practice.   On 27 August, the Xayabouly Provincial People’s Court sentenced a 29-year-old man to death after convicting him of trafficking methamphetamine and crystal meth.  The ruling became public on 30 August. The defendant, identified only as Nouvue, is from Chiangtong village in Paktha district, Bokeo Province. 

Jakarta. As many as 77 Indonesians on death row in Malaysia might have a chance to serve lighter sentences following some legal reforms in the close neighboring country, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Malaysia recently decided to scrap the mandatory death penalty for a range of serious crimes, including drug trafficking and murder. This does not entirely remove death penalties in Malaysia, and the option for such a sentence still exists for some criminal offenses. However, death penalties are no longer an automatic sentence, and judges now have the option to hand prison terms of 30 to 40 years instead. Malaysia also allows the resentencing of eligible prisoners. 

Jakarta (ANTARA) - As many as 168 Indonesian citizens are facing death penalty overseas for various crimes, according to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as of August 2023. Of the total cases, 157 were recorded in Malaysia, four cases in the United Arab Emirates, three cases in Saudi Arabia and Laos respectively, and one case in Vietnam, the ministry's Director of Protection for Indonesian Citizens and Indonesian Legal Entities Judha Nugraha noted. Nugraha remarked in a press briefing here on Friday that 110 of them were involved in drug-related crimes and 58 others were convicted in murder cases. During the 2011-2022 period, the ministry had recorded that 519 Indonesians overseas were prevented from executions.

A court in the central Ha Tinh Province has sentenced a Laotian man to death for transporting one kilogram of ketamine and 7,000 amphetamine pills into Vietnam. It found Yer Vang, 28, guilty of "illegal transportation of narcotic substances." Ha Tinh border guards and customs checked a car Yer was driving while he was completing procedures to enter Vietnam at the Cau Treo International Border Gate in Huong Son District on August 16, 2022. They found the back seats of the car, which carried a Lao number plate, having signs of being modified. After removing the cover, they found the drugs hidden beneath, some covered by bags of dried tea leaves.

Apart from the family members and friends of the prisoners he has represented, Julian McMahon knows about as well as any Australian about the grisly, heartbreaking reality of the death penalty. The Melbourne barrister was the lawyer for Bali 9 members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who faced an Indonesian firing squad in 2015, and for Melbourne man Van Tuong Nguyen, who was put to death for drug trafficking by Singapore in 2005. “The role of the lawyer in those circumstances is to provide steady guidance and not to be overwhelmed by the emotional horror of it all,” McMahon told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “That comes later. It’s deeply upsetting to participate in. By participating up close you see that not only is the prisoner being killed, but also his family is being destroyed. The ripple effect of an execution is to kill the prisoner, destroy the family and ultimately to harm all those involved in the process.” The issue of capital punishment has naturally peaked in pr...

The situation is particularly dire for foreign nationals who find themselves sentenced to death outside of their home countries. On March 30, Singapore executed Abdul Kahar bin Othman, a local man sentenced to death for drug offences and the first person to be executed in Singapore in since 2019. Othman had been unable to appeal his execution because he did not have a lawyer. 8 of the 35 countries that still retain the death penalty for drug offences are in South-east Asia and were responsible for a staggering 91.5 % of all confirmed death sentences given for drug offences worldwide, according to the Global Review 2021 from Harm Reduction International (HRI). The imposition of these death sentences is shrouded in secrecy and characterised by widespread human rights violations (HRI 2019), such as lack of access to legal representation (HRI 2020), as in Othman's case. Too often, there are reports of torture, ill treatment and coerced confession. The situation is particularly dire for...

Vietnam has some of the world’s toughest drug laws. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine or over 2.5 kg of methamphetamine could face capital punishment. Production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of any other illegal substance is also punishable by death. A Ha Tinh court Tuesday sentenced 2 people to death and another to life imprisonment for transporting 31 kg of methamphetamine. The court found Thai Ngoc Hoang, 34, Phan Van Tinh, 27, and Nguyen Dinh Chinh, 26, guilty of transporting narcotics. While Hoang and Tinh received death sentences, Chinh was given a life sentence. According to the indictment, Chinh was driving Tinh in a 5-seat car last June when they were stopped by police officers in Huong Khe District, which borders Laos and is a notorious location for drug smuggling. However, Chinh stepped on the accelerator and sped away and the police gave chase. In Phuc Dong Commune, Tinh, sitting in the backseat, threw a backp...

A court in the northern province of Dien Bien on Friday sentenced 7 people to death and 3 others to life imprisonment for trafficking over 52 kg of heroin. Those getting death included 2 former commune officials Hang A De, 40, and Hang A Giang, 34, and former police officer Sung A Tua, 33, Vietnam News Agency reported. Patrolling anti-drug police officers in Dien Bien arrested Mua A Lenh, 33, for illegally trading 655 grams of heroin in Muong Cha District in May 2019. Expanding their investigation, the police found Lenh and 9 others were part of a ring that had illegally transported around 51.6 kg of heroin from Laos into Dien Bien, 500 kilometers west of Hanoi, in October 2018. Lenh was found guilty of "illegal trading and trafficking of narcotic substances" while 9 others were charged with "illegal trafficking of narcotic substances." Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of metha...

A court in the central province of Nghe An on Monday sentenced four men to death for trafficking 28.7 kilograms of methamphetamine from Laos. Le Ngoc Son, 35, the leader of a cross-border gang, and three accomplices, Tran Van Luc, 40, Nguyen Quang Bich, 34, and Mai Dinh Phuoc, 36, were found guilty of "illegal trading of narcotic substances." Four others received jail terms of 15 years to life. They transported drugs from Laos to Nghe An before delivering them to other parts of Vietnam. In July 2017 Phuoc, Bich and two others were arrested while transporting 10 kg of meth from Hanoi into HCMC by bus. Based on their testimonies, the police arrested other members of the ring. Son left his hometown, Vinh, and fled to China. But he returned home in October 2018 and was taken in by the local police. Investigators said in June and July 2017 the gang had traded 28.7 kg of meth. With meth becoming a substance favored by hard-partying youth, drug bus...

Bangkok’s Criminal Court handed down life imprisonment to Laotian drug ring leader Xaysana “Mr. X” Keopimpha, on charges of smuggling 1.2 million methamphetamine pills, known as “yaba,” into Thailand.  He was initially sentenced to death, and the sentence was upheld by a lower court in December, but the penalty was commuted to life imprisonment because he cooperated with the court. The Thai Court of Appeals found that Xaysana arranged for the drugs to be smuggled from Laos in a vehicle with a false roof compartment.  That court ruled Xaysana must serve his time in Thailand since the smuggling attempt was aimed at harming Thai citizens. He was taken to hear the judgment from the Central Correctional Institution for Drug Addicts, where he’s been detained since he was arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport in January 2017, arriving on a flight from Phuket. Police captured some members of his network in Oct0ber 2016, after seizing 1.2 million yaba pills smuggled i...

An appeal court in Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh City has handed down the capital punishment to seven drug traffickers for smuggling nearly 400 heroin cakes from Laos to the country, local media reported on 22 May 2020. The 50-year-old mastermind from central Nghe An province and his six accomplices were sentenced to death earlier in a trial court in late 2019.  The defendants filed an appeal for mitigation but was rejected by the panel, online newspaper VietNamNet reported on 22 May. Between June and July 2018, the ring trafficked a total of 379 cakes of heroin, weighing 132.2 kg, and 55 kg of crystal methamphetamine from Laos to Vietnam, said the court. Source:  Xinhua, Staff, May 22, 2020 ⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com . Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help...

A court in the central province of Nghe An sentenced a Lao man to death on Friday for carrying 10.7 kilos of drugs into Vietnam. The indictment said Tho No Bi, 37, had been hired by another Lao national late last year to bring drugs of different kinds into Vietnam to find customers. He then reached a man in northern Vietnam, who ordered six kilograms of methamphetamine and 48,000 ecstasy pills. The package was expected to fetch $48,000 and Bi was offered payment worth around $230 for the transaction. He was arrested when carrying the drugs on his back, trekking through the border into Vietnam at Que Phong District of Nghe An. He was charged with illegal trade of narcotics. He admitted the crime, saying his family of nine kids usually had to struggle with poverty and hunger. He himself did not have a stable job and the income from farming could not help him and his wife afford raising their children, Dan Tri reported. But the judge panel said the drug amount w...

Public anger over harsh sentences in land dispute case persuades state to reconsider evidence Activists have welcomed the Vietnamese president's order to review the case of farmers given severe sentences including the death penalty for murder over a land dispute. The President's Office announced on July 17 that President Tran Dai Quang had asked the Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuracy and the Ministry of Public Security to "review processes of investigations, prosecution and trial of the murder case and report to the president," Vietnam News Agency reported. On July 12, the High-level People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City upheld the death penalty given to Dang Van Hien , a farmer found guilty of murder amid a land row between farmers and a private company. Hien was convicted of shooting to death 3 men and injuring 13 others from the Long Son Trade and Investment Company. The court had earlier reduced the sentences of farm...