Hanoi, Dec 19: A court in Northern Vietnam today sentenced seven men to death and five more to life imprisonment for trafficking large amounts of opium, a court official said. The group's ringleader, Lu Van Can, 39, was convicted of trading and trafficking 85 kilograms of opium, possessing weapons and fleeing a detention house, said Hoang Cao Tien, secretary of the People's Court in Tuyen Quang province, about 160 km North of Hanoi.

The other six defendants sentenced to face firing squads for trading a combined total of about 230 kilograms (500 pounds) of opium, Tien said.

Today's sentences were the latest handed down in a drugs trial that started in late November for 47 defendants, most of them from ethnic minorities. Bureau Report