PHOTO: Vietnam Court Overturns Death Sentence Of Nigerian Drug Mule

A Vietnam court has commuted a death sentence previously handed to 33 years old Nigerian, Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu, for bringing methamphetamine into Vietnam, to life imprisonment.
Ikechukwu was in June 2012, apprehended with 3.3 kilograms of the banned drug concealed in metal tubes and a laptop charger in his luggage as he flew to Tan Son Nhat in Vietnam.

When he was arrested, Ikechukwu said he only planned to come to Vietnam to buy clothes to resell them in Nigeria and had no idea about the drug in his luggage.

According to him, a man asked him to carry the tubes and the charger to Vietnam and that someone would pick them up.
A Vietnam court heard the case brought against him by Vietnam police in August 2013 and sentenced him to death, but he appealed the verdict. Vietnam Supreme Court then cancelled the verdict, ordering a new investigation. Investigators could not track down the people who had used him as a drug mule.

According to Vietnam law, anyone convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in Vietnam would face a death penalty.