PAKISTAN DEATH SENTENCE FOR WOMAN

A court in Pakistan has, for the first time, sentenced a woman to death for
drugs offences.

The court, in the city of Lahore, also fined the woman, 44-year-old Osfatu
Bose Oweiye from Nigeria, 400,000 rupees ($6,925).

Oweiye was arrested in 1999 after officials from Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics
Force (ANF) found 20 kilograms of heroin in a Lahore hotel.

The sentence comes a day after Pakistani customs officials announced what
they called their biggest-ever haul of heroin.

Men Questioned

ANF officials alleged that Oweiye was the head of a drug-trafficking ring
and had been involved in high-profile smuggling cases elsewhere.

They also said she had drugs convictions in other countries.

Oweiye's arrest four years ago came after police questioned five Nigerian
men in connection with the discovery of the heroin in the Lahore hotel.

Police say the heroin was to be smuggled out of Pakistan to be sold in
other countries.

On Tuesday, customs officials in western Pakistan said they had seized more
than a tonne of heroin. They said it was the country's biggest-ever haul of
the drug.

The raid came after a fierce gunfight following a tip-off in Balochistan
Province near the Afghan border.

A number of suspected smugglers escaped.

Customs officials said the 1,350 kilograms of heroin were worth more than
$500m on the international market. Officials said the heroin was of the
highest quality, and suspect it was smuggled from neighbouring Afghanistan.

The UN International Narcotics Control Board says that opium cultivation in
Afghanistan - used in heroin and other drugs - is now as widespread as in
the 1990s.