THE People’s Court of the southwestern province of Tay Ninh, Vietnam, has sentenced a 25-year-old Nigerian Unachukwu Chiluba Paulinus to death for illegally transporting narcotic substances into the country from Cambodia.
The judgment delivered on Tuesday, April 13, was based on Article 250 of the 2015 Penal Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, local media reported.
Paulinus was arrested on February 19, 2020, in the Ta Pheng area of Thuan Tay hamlet in Loi Thuan commune, Ben Cau district, while transporting nearly three kilogrammes of methamphetamine.
He told police that he arrived in Cambodia in 2019, where he met an African man called Oscar who hired him to transport the drugs from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City for $2,000. He was paid $650 in advance.
After traveling by taxi from Phnom Penh to the border, he crossed over into Vietnam and was arrested by Ben Cau district’s Police.
He also confessed to having earlier transported a backpack containing drugs from Cambodia to HCM City, which he delivered to an unknown man.
Paulinus’ conviction came a few days after another Nigerian Ekwegbalu James Nzube was also sentenced to death for trafficking nearly four kilogrammes of methamphetamine in the same country.
Nzube was arrested in 2014 when he allegedly transported the drugs into the country from China.