VIETNAM. COURT SENTENCES WOMAN TO DEATH FOR HEROIN TRAFFICKING

a court in northern Vietnam sentenced Tran Thi Thu Thanh, a 39 year old female, to death for smuggling heroin to neighboring China. Thanh was convicted of illegally transporting 4.56 kilograms (10 pounds) of heroin from Vietnam to China. She was sentenced to face the firing squad at the end of the one-day trial in Lang Son province, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of Hanoi, the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan (People) said. The paper quoted Thanh as telling the judges she was hired by a Vietnamese man to transport the heroin across the border. Border guards arrested her in November 2004.