Death sentence for Aussie drug smuggler

[Felix the Cat]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22803338-401,00.html

A NEW South Wales man convicted of trafficking heroin in Vietnam will be put to death, a court has decided.

The People's Court of Appeals in Ho Chi Minh City reaffirmed the sentence for Tony Manh, 40, at a hearing yesterday after hearing no new evidence for a reduction in his sentence, a court official told the Associated Press.

Manh was convicted in September of trafficking 948g of heroin and sentenced to death.

He was arrested in March when security officers at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City found drugs hidden on his body as he was about to board a plane to Sydney.

State media said Manh was paid $US10,000 ($11,445) by a Vietnamese to smuggle the drug into Australia.

Manh has seven days to appeal to President Nguyen Minh Triet for leniency.

About 100 people are sentenced to death in Vietnam each year for drug offences.

[whydoyouwanttoknow]

I taught a class the other week where I looked at Aussies being jailed, executed, etc, in SE Asian countries for drug smuggling. The year 8 class mostly decided that while they thought the death penalty was wrong for drug smuggling, it was bad luck for them because they knew the laws, or at least should have, before they went over there to smuggle drugs in those countries.

[Dan Dare]

Note the name of the "Australian".

Rather like the two British gals who have been had up in Ghana for similar offences.

Yasemin Vatansever and Yatunde Diya (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7104940.stm)

Two grand old Anglo-Saxon names there.