The defendants (in blue) listen to the verdict at the trial on October 7 (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNA) – The People’s Court of Ho Chi MinhCity on October 7 sentenced eight defendants to death and another to lifeimprisonment for trafficking 379 heroin bricks weighing over 132kg and 55kg ofmethamphetamine.
The nine defendants, born between 1954 and 1986,were brought to court with the charge of drug trafficking.
The jury said the acts by the defendants, whoused to commit other crimes in the past, were “particularly serious”, and thetrafficked drug volume was “particularly large”, harmful to social order andsafety and national security.
According to the indictment by the SupremePeople’s Procuracy, Phan Huu Hieu (born in 1974, from Nghe An province), whoplayed the main role in the trafficking, received drugs from a Lao citizen inDa Nang city and then trafficked them to HCM City to hand over to Ly Tho Phuoc(born in 1967, from HCM City) and Phan Thach Dinh (born in 1954, from Quang Triprovince).
On July 11, 2018, Dinh was arrested whilecarrying 40 heroin bricks that had just been bought from Hieu. The same day,Hieu was caught while handing over a suitcase containing 60 heroin bricks toPhuoc.
Police also seized another 47 bricks at Dinh’s residencein District 3 of HCM City, along with another 32 bricks at a house in Binh Tandistrict.
After that, the six other suspects weredetained.
Hieu, Dinh and Phuoc are among those receivedthe death penalty.
The defendants trafficked 379 bricks of heroinweighing over 132kg and 55kg of methamphetamine in total.
Police are still hunting others linked withthese traffickers./.
VNA
