MALAYSIA: TWO WOMEN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR DRUGS

Malaysian courts sentenced two women, a Filipino and Indonesian, to death in separate cases of drug trafficking, reports said.
Ani Anggraeni, an Indonesian working in the northern state of Penang as a domestic helper, was convicted of trafficking nearly four kilos (9 pounds) of methamphetamine on June 21 last year, The Star newspaper reported.
She had testified she went to see her daughter in Vietnam and met a friend "Dwi" who asked her to carry two bags on her flight to Penang, to be passed to another friend.
"Her story makes no sense and I don't think her friend 'Dwi' even exists," the English daily quoted the judge, Mohd Amin Firdaus Abdullah, as saying.
The high court in Shah Alam, just outside Kuala Lumpur, also handed the death sentence to Marivelle Gonzales for trafficking a kilo of drugs, mostly heroin, into the country two years ago, the Bernama news agency reported.
The 31-year-old Filipino said a man had offered her $1,000, a work permit and $250 in expenses to bring in a bag containing the drugs.
Both their lawyers could not be reached for comment.
The court decisions are the latest in a clampdown by Malaysian authorities on alleged foreign drug traffickers but the mandatory death penalty has mostly been meted out on men.
Since 1960, more than 440 people have been executed in Malaysia, including two Australians sentenced to death in 1986 for heroin trafficking -- the first Westerners to be executed under tough anti-drug laws.