I had no choice, says courier facing death

AN AUSTRALIAN sentenced to death in Vietnam this week for heroin trafficking told officials she was forced into the crime to pay off her husband's gambling debts.

It is understood that 34-year-old Jasmine Luong will include the claim in her application for clemency, which must be handed to the Vietnamese President, Nguyen Minh Triet, by the middle of next week.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, are expected to write to the President in support of Luong, whose two children are being looked after by relatives in Sydney.

Luong, an Australian of Vietnamese descent, was arrested at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, outside Ho Chi Minh City, in February last year with 1.5 kilograms of heroin hidden in her shoes and luggage.

Luong told the court an unidentified man offered her $US15,000 ($16,620) to take the drugs to Sydney, with an advance payment of $US4700.

The Herald understands Luong has said her husband deserted her, leaving her with little choice when approached about being a drug courier.

Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death or life imprisonment in Vietnam.

In December, a court found Luong guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced her to life in prison. However, the sentence was upgraded to the death penalty at a hearing earlier this week after prosecutors appealed against the ruling.

There is no set time frame for the President to decide whether he will grant clemency. It is expected Luong will probably have to wait at least a year for a decision.

Five Australians have been sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Vietnam, but none has been executed. Four were granted clemency and another, Tony Manh, is waiting for a response to his application.

Manh was sentenced to death by firing squad in September last year for trying to smuggle almost one kilogram of heroin in his underwear, a haul that would have earned him about $US10,000. Like Luong, he was caught at Tan Son Nhat airport, about seven kilometres outside Ho Chi Minh City, before he boarded a plane to Sydney.

His appeal against the ruling was rejected in late November.

Within days of Labor taking office last year both Mr Rudd and Mr Smith wrote to Mr Triet on Manh's behalf. They are expected to do the same in the case of Luong.

The Vietnamese Government has cited humanitarian considerations and its close relationship with Australia when granting clemency in the past.

Twenty Australians are currently in jail in Vietnam, all on charges related to drug trafficking. Most have been sentenced but some are awaiting trial.

Vietnam takes drug crimes very seriously. Its proximity to the Golden Triangle, an important heroin-producing region, has made it an important drug transit point to Western countries.

In 2000, a Canadian citizen, Nguyen Thi Hiep, who was caught with five kilograms of heroin in 1996, was executed by firing squad, prompting Canada to suspend ministerial-level contact with Vietnam. Since then, no foreign national from a Western country has been executed.

Related:
Australian woman to face firing squad in Vietnam
An Australian woman of Vietnamese origin has lost her court appeal and will face a firing squad in Vietnam instead of serving a life term in prison, state-run newspapers reported.

Australian woman to face firing squad in Vietnam

An Australian woman of Vietnamese origin has lost her court appeal and will face a firing squad in Vietnam instead of serving a life term in prison, state-run newspapers reported.

The Court of Appeals accepted a proposal by prosecutors in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday to change the sentence for 34-year-old Jasmine Luong, who was found guilty by a lower court of trafficking heroin to Australia, the Liberation Saigon newspaper said.

She now has 15 days to appeal the sentence to the President.

Luong was arrested at the city's Tan Son Nhat International Airport while boarding a flight to Melbourne in February 2007 after customs found 1.55 kg of heroin in her shoes and luggage, the city's customs reported.

Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death or life imprisonment in Vietnam.

Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been arrested for trafficking heroin to Australia from Vietnam in recent years.

Man jailed for killing twins' sons

A SYDNEY man has been jailed for at least 24½ years for killing the infant sons of twin sisters with whom he had separate relationships.

In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Peter Hall said the otherwise non-violent man had not revealed how the deaths occurred or his motivation.

The judge also noted the deaths had "left an unimaginable trail of grief and tragedy".

The 41-year-old printer, who can only be referred to as RHB for legal reasons, had denied murdering both boys, on January 26, 1993, and February 14, 2004.

In October a jury found him guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter in relation to the first boy, aged 14 months, and guilty of murdering the second, aged two. Both infants suffered internal traumatic - non-accidental - head injury.

"The medical evidence permits the inference to be drawn that the force involved in occasioning blunt head injury to [the first boy] was a significant force or sufficient to cause rotational head injury or injury caused by impact," Justice Hall said. "The mechanisms of injury were the same or similar to those that caused injury to [the second boy]."

RHB married the mother of the first boy in 1992 and sometime after they broke up in 2001 began a relationship with her twin.

In the first case he had brought her unconscious and "limp" son to her at their home, after he had been alone with the toddler.

The mother of the second boy had been out shopping when RHB rang to say: "Hurry up and get back, your son is unconscious, he's blacked out."

On occasions, she said, RHB told her how much he hated her taking the boy to visit his father, saying "I wish this child was mine so you wouldn't have to go over and see [him]."

Justice Hall said medical evidence at the trial concluded he was not suffering any psychiatric illness, disability, or disturbance.

Mother found guilty of daughter's murder

A woman has broken down in the South Australian Supreme Court as a jury unanimously found her guilty of murdering her young daughter.

The death happened at Swan Reach on the River Murray in November 2005.

The jury was told that Tracey Lee Smith fatally bashed her daughter Ti-Aysha because the 21-month-old would not eat her baked beans.

24-year old Smith denied killing Ti-Aysha and tried to pin the blame on her former de facto partner Adam Troy Barty.

After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, the jury rejected Smith's story and found her guilty of murder.

She broke down as she was led from the dock, facing a mandatory life prison term.

Justice Kevin Duggan will hear submissions in July for setting a non-parole term.

Teens to serve 15 years for 'gruesome' murder of friend

Two teenage girls have been sentenced to life imprisonment in Western Australia for murdering their 15-year-old friend who they then buried in a shallow grave in the south-west town of Collie.

The two girls, who are now 17, pleaded guilty to killing their friend, 15-year-old Eliza Jane Davis in June last year.

They covered her mouth with a chemical-soaked rag and strangled her with a piece of wire.

President of the Perth Children's Court, Denis Reynolds, said the offence they committed was gruesome and merciless in the extreme and showed a gross disregard for human life.

But because of their age, the pair will eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 15 years.

Outside, Eliza Davis' grandfather expressed his outrage at the sentence.

"They'll be free running around in 15 years and I've lost a grand-daughter," he said.

"I'll never get her back."

Their sentence will be backdated until June last year when they were taken into custody.