HANOI - A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen
Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant.
The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened.
Oanh's husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.
Oanh was due to face a firing squad this year after losing her appeal against the death sentence she received last year for possession of a billion dong ($95,300) worth of heroin.
Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
- REUTERS
