Nigerian Man To Be Executed In Vietnam: Drug Smuggler, Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu To Be Killed By Lethal Injection
A Nigerian has been sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Vietnam, state media said on Wednesday.
According to AFP, a court in Vietnam, whose drug laws are among the
toughest in the world, on Monday handed a 31-year-old Nigerian man,
Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu, a death sentence for smuggling 3.4 kilograms
of methamphetamines from Qatar to Vietnam.
Vietnam takes a hardline on drugs and anyone found guilty of attempting
to smuggle more than 100 grams of heroin or cocaine can face the death
penalty.
Convictions and sentences are revealed only by local media which is strictly under state control in the communist nation.
Ejiogu who was arrested at the city’s Tan Son Nhat Airport on June
23, 2012, after arriving from Thailand, with the drugs allegedly found
in 19 nylon bags hidden in a battery charger, claimed during
interrogation that he had been asked by another man to carry some goods
including 16 pistons and the battery charger to Viet Nam, and that he
did not know there were drugs inside.
Meanwhile, after a two-year hiatus in carrying out capital punishment
due to problems of procuring chemicals for lethal injections, Vietnam
executed its first prisoner by the method in August.
The country currently has more than 586 prisoners on death row, at
least 117 of whom meet all the criteria for immediate execution, media
reports have said.
Although the country does not release statistics on executions, rights
group Amnesty International recorded five executions in 2011 and said 23
new death sentences were handed out that year, mainly to drug
traffickers.
Foreigners frequently fall foul of the nation’s stiff drug laws.
In June last year, a Thai design student was handed a death penalty
for trafficking three kilos of methamphetamine, while in October, a
61-year-old Filipina received the death penalty for smuggling five
kilograms of methamphetamines.
Culled from Eagle Eye
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