HANOI - A Vietnam court has sentenced a 46-year-old Australian of Vietnamese origin to death by firing squad for attempting to send heroin stuffed in loudspeakers to Australia, state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said today.
Mai Cong Thanh, the second Australian sentenced to death in Vietnam this year for herointrafficking, was sentenced by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on Thursday, the radio said.
The court was told that Thanh and another two men, also Australian, hid compressed heroin in loudspeakers in order to send to Australia.
Thanh and one of his two accomplices, who is also of Vietnamese origin, were arrested at Saigon Port in May 2003 with nearly 2 kg of heroin. The other man was not tried because he suffered from a psychiatric disorder.
The second accomplice had fled, the radio said.
Trafficking in more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death or life in jail in Vietnam.
In April, the Ho Chi Minh City court sentenced a 45-year-old Australian man of Vietnamese origin to death for trafficking heroin.
