A school teacher in northern Vietnam has received the death penalty for drug trafficking, state media reported on Wednesday.
“Vu Ba Xenh, 40, was arrested in June 2018 in Nghe An province with 15 kilogrammes of drugs following a police shootout,” the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
On the day of his arrest, Xenh, who was offered 200 dollars to transport drugs around Nghe An, had been meeting smugglers on the Vietnamese side of a forested border area to transport the drugs onward within Vietnam.
However, the group was intercepted by police.
Although Xenh was successfully apprehended, other members of the group opened fire on the police and fled.
Two police officers were shot, with one permanently confined to a wheelchair as a result of his injuries.
Police found 20 packages of heroin, seven kilogrammes of methamphetamine and 12,000 pills of an undisclosed “synthetic” drug at the scene, including the 15 kilogrammes of drugs found on Xenh’s person, as well as one gun.
While it was unclear from the court ruling the type of drugs specifically found on Xenh, trafficking over 100 grammes of either meth or heroin warrants the death penalty in Vietnam.
