LAOS. FIVE HANDED DEATH PENALTY FOR SMUGGLING AMPHETAMINES

five people were sentenced to death and four more handed life prison sentences in Laos after one of the country's biggest ever drug trafficking cases, the foreign ministry said.
"We want to send a very strong message to drug traffickers that Laos will not play around," ministry spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy told AFP, saying narcotics smuggling was a "threat to the nation". According to the Laotian news agency KPL, the gang had smuggled almost 400,000 amphetamine pills into the country.