Four Vietnamese people were sentenced to death, and a woman to life in prison for trading and transporting 44 cakes of heroin, 15.4 kg of the drug, from early 2005 till their arrest in September 2005, according to local newspaper Pioneer on Wednesday.

The People's Court of northern Son La province on Tuesday passed the death sentences to Nguyen Van Ngu, Nguyen Ba Bai, Nguyen Thi Viet, all from northern Bac Ninh province, and Nguyen Thi Linh from central Ha Tinh province, and the life imprisonment sentence to Hoang Thi Tien from Bac Ninh.

In September 2005, Son La police caught red-handed Bai, Linh and Viet who were transporting 11 cakes of heroin weighing nearly 3.9 kg from Son La province to Hanoi capital.

In Vietnam, possessing, trading or trafficking 600 grams of heroin or 20 kg of opium is punishable by death or life in prison.

Vietnam, as of late 2006, had a total of 160,226 drug addicts, over 70 percent of whom are in the age bracket of 18-35, according to statistics from the country's Ministry of Public Security.

Vietnam and nine other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar hope to achieve a drug-free region by 2015.

Source: Xinhua