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  1. #1
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    Vietnam

    Vietnam to switch to lethal injection for death penalty

    Vietnam, one of several countries in Asia where the death penalty remains in force, has been executing around 100 condemned prisoners a year by firing squad.

    The switch to lethal injection will "reduce physical pain for the condemned and also provide psychological relief to executioners," police Major General Cao Ngoc Oanh was quoted as saying by the Nguoi Dua Tin (nguoiduatin.vn) newspaper on Saturday.

    The administration is building chambers at prison facilities where the lethal injection will be administered to convicted prisoners, Oanh said.

    Lethal injection is the principle method used in the United States to carry out the death penalty.

    The Vietnamese police ministry first suggested an end to the firing squad in early 2006, saying it had led to mental disorder in the case of one member of the firing squad while many others had quit the service.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75O0C220110625

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    Lethal injection to pilot in 5 localities next year

    After completing necessary preparations, Vietnam will switch from firing squad to lethal injection for executions in January 2012, said Major General Ta Xuan Binh, deputy head of the Criminal Verdict Execution and Judicial Assistance Police General Department.

    The lethal injection application will pilot in fives provinces and cities, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Nghe An, Dak Lak and Son La, the official said.

    One of the first steps preparations is a training course that was opened in Hospital 198 in Hanoi yesterday, for police officers and soldiers who will be in charge of performing the lethal injection on death row prisoners, Binh said.

    The Ministry of Public Security has also submitted a plan for execution by lethal injection to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for approval, Binh said.

    The plan’s goal is to build facilities, provide equipment, and train personnel for 66 execution centers, 63 of which will be managed by local police departments, while the other 3 are to be controlled by the Defense Ministry.

    The project is expected to be completed in 2015, but the first five centers will be made available for the selected localities in December.

    The execution chamber will have a bed to which the prisoner will be strapped and injected with the lethal drugs by an automatic machine. Prison officials will monitor the death through a heart monitor.

    Three drugs will be used: sodium thiopental, to anesthetize the condemned;, pancuronium bromide, to paralyze the nervous system and muscles;, and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

    The application of lethal injection for executions has been twice delayed due to a lack necessary facilities and personnel.

    It was first expected to be carried out on July 1, when the Law on Execution of Criminal Verdicts was passed, but was postponed until November 1 and then again until next January.

    Around 360 prisoners are currently on death row, mostly in HCMC, Hanoi, Nghe An, and Son La.

    The death penalty is given for 29 different crimes including murder, armed robbery, treason, drug trafficking, sexual abuse of children, and economic crimes, such as embezzling VND500 million (US$24,000) or more of state property. But, in practice, it is mostly given only for drug trafficking and murder.

    http://english.vietnamnet.vn/en/soci...next-year.html

  3. #3
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    The last moments of death-row criminals

    Keeping silent, chatting, showing remorse, and even insulting and swearing on their way from the jail to the firing range -- not every death-row criminal shares these same feelings and reactions in their very last minutes of being able to breathe the living air.

    Part 1: The end of firing squads in Vietnam
    Part 2: Firing range caretaker in Hanoi
    Part 3: The last moments of death-row criminals


    These last actions of the criminals may also become history as of January 1, 2012, when lethal injection replaces the firing squad as the method of death penalty.

    In jails around the country, criminals on death row are called “living ghosts.” They often talks to each other through the jail walls without knowing the physical appearance of the other. They will make acquaintances by exchanging information on what crime they committed, and where they did it. When intimacy develops, they will play chess verbally with each other.

    It is not unusual for these criminals to hear the sounds of footsteps and of the lock being opened at around 3am on a particular morning. This is when one of them is going to be executed at the firing range.

    Whenever the footsteps break the quiet air of the jail, the criminals will stir, asking each other who will be the one to be fired on that day.

    And that very person usually lingers for a few seconds in front of each cell to bid farewell to their “prison-mates,” saying last words such as: “Take care! We will meet each other and be friends again in the afterlife.”

    The selected prisoner will then say farewell to the jail’s superintendents, thanking them for taking care of him, and promising to bless them with luck and health.

    Vu Xuan Hong, deputy superintendent of the Hanoi-based Jail No 1, said he could not remember how many times he has received such farewells from criminals during the course of his 30 years in this position.

    “It usually takes the other criminals several days after one of their prison-mates has been executed to return to talking and playing chess with each other,” Hong said.

    On the way to death

    Le Quy Long, a jail officer in charge of escorting the criminals to the firing range, said that since most the criminals are aware of their guilt, they are willing to accept death.

    Even though some have fainted due to their extreme fear, most of them manage to make small talk with those escorting them, Long said.

    “I often try to tell them something fun to help them relax.”

    Long, who has been working at the Hanoi-based Cau Nga firing range for nearly 20 years, recalled the last minutes before the death of Nguyen Tung Duong, a police officer who was sentenced to death in 1993 for murder, a case that shocked the public.

    Local people flocked to the range on the day Duong received the death penalty, Long said.

    “During his last minutes at the execution ground, Duong asked me for a cigarette, then nonchalantly received his penalty,” Long recalled.

    Pham Ba Ngai, a police officer in the northern province of Son La, who has long been working in the firing squad, said that many criminals have fainted just before they were fired upon. But the case of Nguyen Thi Theu in Moc Chau, who had been waiting a record 8 years for her execution, is something that Ngai can never forget.

    “Theu repeatedly swore at and insulted the jail officers and the execution board with the dirtiest words on her way from the jail to the firing range,” he recalled. “She refused to eat, change clothes, or tidy herself up, and only swore and swore even more when she was standing on the execution ground.”

    “This is a case in which we received the most offensive insults.”

    The other criminal Ho Tuan Hung, who was sentenced to death for murder, showed no emotion as he was being escorted to the range or while listening to the squad reiterating his guilt and sentence, he said.

    There were many yellow ants at the firing range that day, and when the execution squad was about to aim their guns, Hung suddenly shouted out, “Officers! Please help me drive away the ants on my feet” in a panicked manner.

    “Though the firing squad was ready to shoot the criminal, they still satisfied his last demand”, recalled Hung.

    http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuo...minals-1.55068

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Now American states that have capital punishment will have to find out where the Vietnamese are getting their sodium thiopental from.

  5. #5
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    Lethal drug shortage offers Vietnam death-row prisoners reprieve

    Hundreds of death-row prisoners in Vietnam have been given a reprieve of sorts due to a shortage of the drug used for lethal injections, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

    Death by firing squad was replaced by lethal injections to reduce suffering last July - but police have failed to execute anyone since.

    "In the past year, the execution of more than 400 inmates has not been able to go ahead. More than 100 of them have completed all the paperwork," Deputy Police Minister Dang Van Hieu was quoted by Tuesday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as saying.

    "Their execution awaits the drug, which is not available yet." He said imports of the unspecified drug "had proved difficult".

    The newspaper did not give any suggestion of how the problem could be solved.

    The American state of Oklahoma, which executes more prisoners per capita than any other state, said this month it had only one remaining dose of European-made pentobarbital, a key drug used to kill condemned prisoners.

    One reason the state had run so low in stocks was because of a ban on the sale of drugs for such purposes by the European Union, which opposes the death penalty.

    http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%...29-349140.html
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  6. #6
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    Vietnam hands death sentence to Thai drug trafficker

    A court in Vietnam on Tuesday sentenced a Thai design student to death for trafficking three kilos (6.6 pounds) of synthetic drugs into Vietnam, media reports said.

    Preeyanooch Phuttharaksa, 23, from Bangkok, told the court in southern Ho Chi Minh City she had smuggled methamphetamine to Vietnam from Benin last October, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said.

    She was arrested after the drugs were found in a false bottom in her suitcase.

    Preeyanooch said she had been paid 50,000 baht ($1,570) to transport the drugs, the report said.

    Communist Vietnam’s anti-drug laws are among the world’s harshest. There are currently more than 400 prisoners on death row in Vietnam, mostly for cases involving drugs or murder, but executions have declined in recent years.

    Five prisoners were executed last year, one for drugs-related offences, according to statistics compiled by AFP.

    Since July 2011, when Vietnam changed from execution by firing squad to lethal injection, no prisoners have been put to death.

    http://www.canada.com/news/Vietnam+h...300/story.html
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  7. #7
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    Vietnam: Lethal injection switch stalls over lack of drugs

    Though approved by the National Assembly in 2009, execution by lethal injection under the Law on Criminal Verdict Execution has been delayed two times and has still not been carried out because concerned agencies have been unable to import the drugs needed for the injections.

    The isue was raised and discussed at an NA meeting held on October 26 to review the country’s performance in fighting crime.

    National Assembly Deputy Chairman Huynh Ngoc Son said the police department has built 10 execution centers by lethal injection, but the new execution method has yet to be implemented due to a failure to import the necessary materials.

    “The drugs for a lethal injection must be imported through the EU, but the organization is demanding that Vietnam abolish the death penalty,” Son said.

    According to a report from several law agencies, nearly 450 defendants have yet to be executed by the new method due to the lack of material. Meanwhile, some prisoners under the death penalty have petitioned to have their sentences executed soon, while others have died because of illness while waiting for their execution. This delay under the new method means a larger burden has been placed on prisons.

    The Health Ministry and concerned agencies are trying to import the injections but nobody knows for sure when exactly they will be available for use, while the delay in executions due to the absence cannot be prolonged anymore.

    “I have proposed that if the new execution method cannot be carried out, then the law be amended so that execution by firing squad can be applied again, but the Government has not agreed to this,” Son said.

    Phan Trung Ly, chairman of the NA’s Law Committee, said the ministries of Defense and Public Security have built many execution centers and equipped them with advanced equipment, and hundreds of officers have been trained in execution by lethal injection.

    “However, the new execution method has not been implemented because concerned agencies cannot import the drugs needed for the injection, since nobody sells them,” Ly said.

    The Ministry of Public Security said that the Health Ministry is responsible for importing the lethal injections, while the latter claims the former is responsible.

    Ly said governmental agencies have failed in their duty to implement the law. “Why do we have to delay importing lethal injections? Is Vietnam unable to produce such injections?” Ly said.

    He also suggested that firing squads be used again to execute prisoners.

    Dr. Dinh Xuan Thao, head of the Legislative Research Institute, also said that the law should be amended so that both firing squads and the lethal injection can be chosen to use in execution.

    In the long run, legislators should minimize the number of criminal charges subject to a sentence. The death penalty should be applied for particularly serious crimes only, Thao said.

    As previously reported, the switch was scheduled for July 1, 2011 after the Law on Execution of Criminal Verdicts was passed by the National Assembly in 2010 and lawmakers looked for a "more humane" method of execution.

    But the switch was delayed until November, and then December 2011, and it has still not been applied.

    According to the new execution method, three drugs will be used - sodium thiopental to anesthetize the condemned, pancuronium bromide to paralyze the nervous system and muscles, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. These drugs can be injected two to three times if they do not work the first time.

    Source: tuoitrenews
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  8. #8
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    Dead Men Waiting: Vietnam Plans To Make Own Drugs For Use In Lethal Injections

    Authorities in Vietnam will be forced to manufacture their own poison for use in lethal injections for convicted prisoners sitting on death row, due to foreign companies' refusal to sell such drugs.

    Suppliers from the European Union strictly regulated the export of drugs that are used for capital punishment, torture or other forms of inhuman treatment.

    Vietnam.net reported that 532 inmates are currently languishing in local jails waiting to be executed – mostly for crimes such as drug trafficking, rape and corruption.

    BBC reported that Vietnam ceased using firing quads to execute prisoners in July 2011, citing, among other things, the rising costs of such procedures and the “stress” suffered by the executioners. No executions have been carried out since that time since officials have been unable to acquire the necessary drugs required to carry out lethal injections.

    But now, given that prisons are filling up with condemned prisoners, some Vietnamese officials have called for a return to firing squads.

    A number of high-profile death-sentence cases have emerged recently in Vietnam.

    Last November, a court sentenced a 61-year-old Filipino woman to death after she was arrested for smuggling illegal methamphetamines into Vietnam. Amodia Teresita Palacio was charged with possessing more than 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of the drug at an airport in Hanoi in April, Agence France-Presse reported.

    In a trial she was convicted of repeatedly attempting to enter Vietnam from Thailand to sneak drugs in.

    Vietnam boasts some of the toughest drug laws in the world -- the possession of more than one-half kilogram of drugs can mean the death penalty.

    Other “crimes” can also lead to execution.

    In late December, police arrested 14 Catholic human rights activists for “subversion” after they went online to expose incidents of corruption among Communist party officials. The official charge under the nation’s criminal code was "carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people's administration."

    AsiaNews reported that about 40 activists and bloggers were convicted of similar charges under a directive by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to crack down on dissent, particularly those who disseminate information over the Internet.

    Dung ordered police "to prevent the formation of opposition political organizations."

    "We are deeply saddened by the actions of the government of Vietnam," Father Le Quoc Thang, secretary of the Justice and Peace Committee of the Bishops' Council of Vietnam, said in reaction to the mass arrests.

    "They claim Vietnam is under the rule of law, but their behavior is not in accordance with the law."

    Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said that state repression in Vietnam has been tightening for years.

    “Vietnam finds itself in a rapidly developing economic and human rights morass,” he wrote.

    “With the ascension of [PM Dung] in 2006, Vietnam has seen several intensifying trends. First, cronyism and corruption in state enterprises, and an epidemic of seizures of land by well-connected foreign and national investors, has fueled popular anger with [Communist Party] officials using their positions to enrich themselves. Second, Dung has worked closely with police allies in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to keep a lid on dissent, and his connections with the ministry have made him one of the most powerful prime ministers in recent memory.”

    As a result, Robertson added, independent writers, bloggers, religious leaders and activists who “question government policies, expose official corruption, resist land seizures and expropriations, demand freedom to practice their beliefs or call for democratic alternatives to one-party rule are routinely subject to police harassment and intrusive surveillance, detained incommunicado for a year or more without access to legal counsel and sentenced to increasingly long prison terms in one-day trials for violating vague national security laws.”

    http://www.ibtimes.com/dead-men-wait...ctions-1034148
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #9
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    Well, once the Vietnamese start producing these drugs on their own, what's to stop American states from purchasing them?

  10. #10
    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    This sounds like a bad idea to me somehow. Vietnam does not have much (if any) credible domestic capability to produce complex anaesthetics or sedatives.

    The United States does, however, the various state DOCs just don't have the money to do something like this.

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