Vietnam sentences Australian to death for heroin trafficking

A court in Ho Chi Minh City has sentenced an Australian man to face a firing squad for heroin trafficking.

Mai Cong Thanh, 46, of Victoria, was given the death sentence in a one-day trial yesterday, a court official said.

Thanh and Nguyen Manh Cuong, both Australians of Vietnamese descent, were arrested in June 2003 after Vietnamese police found 1.7 kilograms of heroin hidden in 76 stereo speakers during a raid of their rented workshop, state-controlled media have reported.

The speakers were among 306 waiting to be shipped to Australia from Vietnam.

Thanh has 15 days to appeal his sentence. Cuong did not face trial because he suffers from a mental disorder, the Vietnam News reported today.

In Vietnam, possessing, trading or trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin or 20 kilograms of opium is punishable by death or life in prison.

Thanh’s case has attracted relatively little attention in Australia, which has been transfixed by the plight of Schappelle Corby, a 27-year-old holidaying on Bali who was sentenced by an Indonesian court to 20 years in jail for smuggling marijuana.

In Australia, Justice Minister Chris Ellison said the government would ask Vietnam not to execute Thanh.

“We’ve done this with other Australian nationals who have faced a sentence of death in Vietnam and Singapore and of course in relation to Indonesia as well,” Ellison said.

“We will be pulling out all stops in relation to this issue to ensure that the death penalty is not carried out and that is our standard practice.”

Australian consulate officials in Ho Chi Minh City attended Thanh’s trial.