FIVE DEATH SENTENCES SOUGHT IN VIETNAM HEROIN CASE

HANOI, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Vietnam have proposed five death
sentences in a trial of 28 people, 11 of them women, accused of involvement
in heroin trafficking, official media reported on Thursday.

Hanoi's police newspaper An Ninh Thu Do (Capital Security) said prosecutors
were seeking the death sentence for one of the women defendents and were
also calling for six life sentences.

The Hanoi People's Court began hearing the case on Monday. Sentences are
due to be announced on December 1 but in communist-ruled Vietnam these
rarely differ from what prosecutors have sought.

Among those charged, all Vietnamese, are five married couples accused of
trafficking nearly 100 350-gram (12.5 ounce) packs of heroin between 1996
and 1999 from northwestern Lai Chau province to Hanoi and then Ho Chi Minh
City.

Trafficking in 100 grams (3.3 ounces) or more of heroin, which wholesales
at $15,000-$19,000 per kg (35 ounces) in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, is
punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Four of the women defendents escaped calls for death sentences as they have
children under the age of three years. They include the wife of one
defendent for whom the prosecutors have sought the death penalty.

Vietnam has been identified by anti-drug agencies as an important
trafficking hub for the Golden Triangle opium-growing region, which covers
parts of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and southwestern China.

In late October, official media said 41 people had been sentenced to death
for drug-related offences in the first 10 months of this year, while 37
others had been jailed for life.