A British woman faces the firing squad after breaking down under questioning in a Vietnamese court yesterday and confessing to her role in a multimillion-pound heroin smuggling ring. As her daughters and sisters watched, Tran Thi Hien, a 47-year old British citizen of Vietnamese origin, first denied but finally admitted being a member of a drug trafficking ring that bought and distributed more than 50 kilograms of heroin across Vietnam and South-East Asia. Two of Hien’s daughters, who travelled from London to attend their mother’s trial, expressed outrage at the charges and condemned the harsh conditions under which she has been held. Unless the Vietnamese judges are uncharacteristically lenient, Ms Hien will be sentenced to death by firing squad — the recommended sentence for smuggling more than 600g of heroin.
Hien appeared in the Quang Binh provincial court in the sleepy seaside town of Hong Doi after two and a half years in custody, during which she has spent just ten minutes with a member of her British family. The lawyer who represented her had only four days to prepare her case. Her original lawyer, who had been working on her defence for a year, was prevented from attending the trial by secret police who incarcerated her in her home.
