Story By: Lisa-Maria Goertz, Sub-Editor: Alex Cope, Agency: Real Press
A Scottish national has been sentenced to two years in a Vietnamese jail after local police caught him with cannabis and ecstasy pills.
The sentence was announced in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi by the People’s City Court yesterday (Monday).
According to local newspaper vnexpress, the 26-year-old named as Andrew Eachan Alexander was trialled alongside Vietnamese man Nguyen Duc Manh, 35, who was his drug dealer.
According to local newspaper dtinews, Manh ran a restaurant in Hanoi’s Old Quarter and sold drugs to foreigners, an offence for which he has been sentenced to 18 years in jail.
According to vnexpress, Manh often got to know foreigners looking for drugs and so began to investigate online how to make pills himself and ordered equipment off a Chinese site which he used to produce synthetic narcotic pills which he sold for 300,000 VND (10 GBP) each.
On December 23rd last year, Alexander was reportedly caught by police with two bags of cannabis and three ecstasy pills and when interrogated admitting having bought drugs off Manh many times and also having sold them on to others.
Based on this testimony, police carried out a raid on Manh’s house, where they seized 232 grams (8 ozs) of methamphetamine.
The Vietnamese national was charged with the possession of 232 grams of methamphetamine and two grams (0.07 ozs) of ketamine while Alexander had on his person 1.4 grams (0.05 ozs) of ecstasy and methamphetamine and five grams (0.17 ozs) of cannabis.
Alexander was found guilty of “illegal trading in narcotic substances” and will be deported from Vietnam upon completing his sentence, according to vnexpress.
Vietnam has notoriously tough drug laws, and those found smuggling large quantities of methamphetamines and heroin can even face a death penalty.
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