Life in prison for just... 500,000 VND

Defendant Vanh Liet at the first instance trial

At about 4:00 p.m. on March 5, 2022, the border guard force (Phu Hoi Border Guard Station, An Giang Provincial Border Guard Command) was performing border patrol duties when they arrived at the landmark area of Phu Nghia Hamlet (Phu Hoi Commune, An Phu District) and discovered Vanh Liet carrying a yellow nylon sack, tied tightly with a black rope, walking from the Cambodian border into Vietnamese territory.

Suspicious, the border guards asked Liet to stop and conducted an inspection, discovering inside the sack a total of 11 transparent nylon bags, all containing white crystals suspected to be drugs, along with a pistol loaded with 5 bullets. The authorities made a record of the arrest of Liet.

On March 11, 2022, Phu Hoi Border Guard Station initiated a criminal case, then transferred all files, evidence and the arrested person to the Provincial Police Investigation Agency for investigation according to its authority. Through the appraisal results, the 11 nylon bags seized were crystal meth, with a total weight of 2kg of Methamphetamine. The pistol was a military weapon, type K54; 5 bullets were military bullets.

Through the investigation results, the Investigation Police Agency of An Giang Provincial Police determined that on March 3, 2022, Liet went to a water shop near his house in Kouk Pou commune (Bourei Cholsar district, Takeo province, Kingdom of Cambodia) to drink water.

There, Liet met a man named Ty (full name and specific address unknown). Through discussion, Ty asked Liet to transport drugs from Cambodia to Vietnam to deliver to someone else, Ty would pay 100,000 riel (equivalent to about 500,000 VND). Because he needed money to spend, Liet did not hesitate and agreed to transport drugs for Ty.

According to the agreement, on March 5, 2022, the two met at a cafe near Liet's house. Ty carried a yellow nylon sack, one end tightly tied with a black rope, containing 2kg of Methamphetamine, a K54 gun and 5 bullets. Ty said that when transporting it to Vietnam, he would go to Ruot canal (near Phu Hoi bridge, in Phu Nghia hamlet, Phu Hoi commune), and hand it over to the man in the blue shirt, riding a sampan. When the delivery was completed and they returned to Cambodia, Ty would pay Liet. After that, Ty drove Liet to meet a man named Sit to take Liet across the border into Vietnam by sampan.

After taking Liet to the Can La canal area - Cambodia (about 2km from the Vietnam border), Liet went ashore, carried a nylon bag along the rice field edge, crossed the Vietnam border to the Ruot canal area to deliver as agreed. At about 4:20 p.m. the same day, Liet arrived at the agreed location but did not meet the recipient as specified. While waiting, he was discovered by the patrol force of Phu Hoi Border Post, caught red-handed, and confiscated the bag containing 2kg of crystal meth, 1 K54 gun with 5 bullets and other related objects.

At the first instance trial as well as during the investigation, defendant Vanh Liet admitted to the crime, consistent with the content, developments of the case and the testimony of the witnesses. However, Liet only admitted to having an agreement with Ty to transport drugs. Regarding the K54 gun and 5 bullets, the defendant said that there was no agreement to transport and did not know that there were guns and bullets in the nylon bag.

The jury analyzed that the defendant's criminal behavior was especially dangerous to society, as he committed two crimes. However, after being discovered, the defendant honestly confessed. After analysis and consideration, the People's Court of An Giang province decided to sentence the defendant Vanh Liet to life imprisonment for the crime of "Illegal transportation of narcotics" and 5 years in prison for the crime of "Illegal transportation of military weapons".

NGUYEN HUNG

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