HCM City court hands eight death, one life sentences to drug traffickers hinh anh 1The 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 Minh City on October 7 sentenced eight defendants to death and another to life imprisonment for trafficking 379 heroin bricks weighing over 132kg and 55kg of methamphetamine.

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, who used to commit other crimes in the past, were “particularly serious”, and the trafficked drug volume was “particularly large”, harmful to social order and safety and national security.

According to the indictment by the Supreme People’s Procuracy, Phan Huu Hieu (born in 1974, from Nghe An province), who played the main role in the trafficking, received drugs from a Lao citizen in Da 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 Tri province).

On July 11, 2018, Dinh was arrested while carrying 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 to Phuoc. 

Police also seized another 47 bricks at Dinh’s residence in District 3 of HCM City, along with another 32 bricks at a house in Binh Tan district.

After that, the six other suspects were detained.

Hieu, Dinh and Phuoc are among those received the death penalty.

The defendants trafficked 379 bricks of heroin weighing over 132kg and 55kg of methamphetamine in total.

Police are still hunting others linked with these traffickers./.
VNA