THAILAND YAO DRUGLORD GETS DEATH SENTENCE

an influential drug dealer was sentenced to death while his girlfriend and an alleged accomplice were acquitted. Jirasak Chatworraniti, a Yao tribesman also known as Sun, was found guilty of trying to strike a deal involving 60 bars of heroin and 137,800 methamphetamine tablets with undercover agents on February 22, 2005. Jirasak, 29, had long been wanted by anti-narcotics agencies and the US Drug Enforcement Administration for his activities in Thailand, Burma and Laos. The Criminal Court acquitted Uthai Somprasobsuk and Kanjana Homnan, Jirasak's girlfriend, on grounds of insufficient evidence. Jirasak was also handed a prison term of two years and nine months for criminal conspiracy, but it was superseded by the death sentence.