A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for leading a drug-smuggling ring, authorities said Thursday.
Ben Blessed, 31, was caught 'illegally transporting drugs' and received a life sentence after a six-day trial, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court said.
Three of his accomplices, including two Nigerian men and Blessed9s Vietnamese girlfriend, Pham Thi Thanh Trang, 33, received 20 to 30 years in jail.
According to the indictment, ringleader Blessed, 31, hired several Vietnamese women to smuggle 693 grams of heroin from foreign countries, including Pakistan, into Vietnam, from where the drug was sent to neighbouring countries, including China.
Police said they caught Trang carrying four packets of heroin hidden in a pair of sandals and a notebook in July 2009 at a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
Trang told police that the sandals and the notebook belonged to Blessed.
Police arrested Blessed and Nigerian citizens Ozogu John, 31, and Anyanwu Chima Stanley, 33.
During a search of Stanley's house, police discovered more than 1,000 grams of heroin in other sandals.
Several Nigerian men have faced trial in Vietnam for drug smuggling over the past few years. The latest death sentence was handed over to Michael Ikenna Nduanya, 34 in March.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for leading a drug-smuggling ring
North Carolina Supreme Court upholds death sentence against Moore County man
The state Supreme Court this month upheld a death sentence against a Moore County man convicted of brutally killing four people during a robbery.
The justices ruled that Mario Lynn Phillips, 43, received a fair trial and deserves to die for his role in the December 2003 slayings at a Carthage mobile home despite his "borderline level of intellectual functioning" and any "emotional disturbance" he was feeling at the time of the crime.
"We are nonetheless convinced that the sentence of death here is not disproportionate," the court wrote in its June 16 ruling. "Accordingly, we conclude that defendant received a fair trial and capital sentencing proceeding, free from prejudicial error, and the death sentence recommended by the jury and imposed by the trial court is not disproportionate."
The crime took place several hours after Phillips learned from Fayetteville police that his brother had been shot, according to details released in the ruling.
Assuming his brother was dead, Phillips, who had been using marijuana and Ecstasy the night before, continued drinking heavily and using drugs before driving to Moore County with his girlfriend, Renee McLaughlin, and a friend, Sean Ray, to tell Phillips' mother about the shooting, court documents say.
The three then went to the Carolina Lakes Trailer Park in Carthage to buy more marijuana. A resident, Daryl Hobson, brought them to the home of Eddie Ryals, where they also met Amanda Cooke Varner, Carl Justice and Joseph Harden.
The group talked for about 30 minutes until Ryals got up to use the bathroom. Phillips then pulled a gun, demanded drugs and cash and then shot Ryals and Justice, court documents say.
Throughout the course of the attack, Phillips and Ray shot, beat and stabbed the occupants of the mobile home as they ransacked it looking for drugs. In the end, they poured gasoline on the home and torched it.
Varner, who had been stabbed more than 20 times and had her throat slashed, was able to crawl out the burning building and survive. Ryals, Justice, Hobson and Harden all died.
After his arrest, Phillips was interviewed by detectives from the Moore County Sheriff's Office, helping them prepare a written statement in which he says he had shot the victims and that Ray followed-up by stabbing them "to make sure that they were dead."
Phillips' lawyers argued in part that he wasn't given access to a lawyer during the interview and that he was substantially impaired by drugs and alcohol at the time and didn't understand the consequences of his actions when he waived his Miranda rights.
The state Supreme Court found that Phillips never asked for a lawyer during the interview and that he was not too intoxicated to give a voluntary statement to police.
Both of Phillips' co-conspirators also have been convicted for their roles in the crime. Ray, now 31, is serving life without parole for the murders. McLaughlin, now 27, is serving a minimum of 12 years on charges of kidnapping and accessory after the fact to murder.
Phillips remains on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh.
Nebraska Is Again Shopping For Lethal Injection Drug
The latest update on the death-sentence saga of Cary Dean Moore is laden with detail but it’s not complicated.
The Department of Corrections screwed up when it purchased one of three drugs needed to kill condemned killers via lethal injection.
The department bought the drug from an outfit in India, since it is no longer manufactured in the United States.
The purchase raised several issues, the one of immediate importance being that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told the department that Nebraska had no authority to be importing controlled substances.
The state said Wednesday it eventually jumped through the required hoops and obtained the federal permit needed to purchase and import the drug, sodium thiopental. And now it will go shopping.
Department officials said the drugs it previously obtained illegally will not be used in Moore’s execution.
Moore, 53, confessed to the premeditated murders of two Omaha cab drivers he robbed and shot to death in 1979. His case has been up and down the judicial ladders, state and federal, several times.
On April 21, the state Supreme Court scheduled his execution for June 14.
Moore’s attorney, Jerry Soucie, went to court in Douglas County and raised questions about the quality of the drug purchased in India. As a result, the Supreme Court stayed the execution May 25th.
Soucie is now questioning why the Department of Corrections didn’t advise the state Supreme Court of the controversy over its importation of the drug. The DEA had told the department it screwed up – several days before the Supreme Court set the new execution date.
The department says it didn’t need to report anything to the court, because it believed it would have the drug issue resolved before the execution date.
Moore is challenging the constitutionality of the lethal injection law on several grounds.
The Legislature adopted the law in 2009, after the state Supreme Court ruled electrocution to be unconstitutional. Nebraska was the last state to have electrocution as its sole means of execution.
The last execution in Nebraska occurred Dec. 2, 1997 when Robert Williams was put to death in the electric chair. He was convicted in the murders of Catherine Brook, Patricia McGarry and Virginia Rowe.
Order of death sentence in drugs case sent back to lower court
The Bombay High Court today sent the case of a Kashmiri national who had been awarded death penalty under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act for a second conviction back to the lower court for reconsideration. This follows a recent order passed by another bench of the High Court holding the provision in NDPS Act which makes death sentence mandatory for a repeat offence as unconstitutional. Section 31 A of the Act prescribes death sentence if a person is convicted for the second time for "engaging in production, manufacture, possession, transportation, import and export of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances". "In view of this High Court order, the case is referred back to the special NDPS court for reconsideration. The lower court is directed to decide the matter within two months," division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and U D Salvi said. The court was hearing the confirmation petition of Ghulam Malik, who was given the death penalty in August 2008 after his second conviction. On June 17, another bench, dealing with a different case, held that the mandatory death sentence for a repeat offence violated Article 21 of the Constitution which gives the right to life.
