Three separate courts on Thursday handed death penalties to five people and life sentences to another seven who were found guilty of dealing drugs.

Vietnam has many times reduced the number of crimes punishable with death penalty and the latest move was made in the 2015 Criminal Code, which took effect in 2018.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The death penalty was submitted on Thursday by the People’s Procuracy of Hoa Binh Province against 11 defendants for “illegally trading and storing drugs” as part of a massive trans-national heroin trafficking operation.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Talk of abolishing the death penalty for several crimes continued to divide National Assembly (NA) deputies yesterday (August 26) as they discussed the draft Criminal Code.

 VietNamNet Bridge – The Ho Chi Minh People's Court yesterday (April 8) upheld a death sentence handed down to the former director of Finance Leasing Company No. 2 (ACL II), who was involved in a major corruption case in 2007.

 VietNamNet Bridge – An international group of legal experts proposed that Vietnam stop the death penalty attached to nine crimes, prompting public debate on the issue.

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 VietNamNet Bridge - At midnight, Vietnamese police discovered in the luggage of a Nigerian man, dozens of plastic bags containing white crystalline solids, which was then determined as narcotics, totaling 3.2kg.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Chief of the Supreme People’s Procuracy Office – Mr. Nguyen Viet Hung said, the deadline was over but the implementation of the death penalty by lethal injection has not been applicable.

VietNamNet Bridge – Lieutenant General Cao Ngoc Oanh of the Ministry Public Security said on June 26 that the facilities and poison for lethal injection "are still being prepared."

VietNamNet Bridge – On June 12, the fifth world conference against the death penalty opened in Madrid, Spain. The event, held by Together Against the Death Penalty, attracts 1,500 delegates from 90 countries.

The poison that will be used for lethal injection in Vietnam from June 27, 2013 includes the sensory paralyzing drug, the drug that paralyzes the musculoskeletal system and the drug to stop the heart's activity.

At the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on crime prevention this morning, the Minister of Public Security said Vietnam would produce poison to serve the policy on conducting the death penalty by lethal injection.