Tony Manh reaffirmed the death sentence

Tony Manh, 40, the People's Court of Appeals in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, reaffirmed the death sentence for Tony Manh, 40, after hearing no new evidence for a reduction in his sentence, a court official told the Associated Press. of NSW, was convicted of trafficking 0.948 kilograms of heroin at the one-day trial , Phan Tanh, deputy head of the People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City, said.
Manh was sentenced to death and ordered to pay a fine of 50 million dong ($3,755 Australian).
Manh was arrested in March after security officers at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City found the drugs hidden on his body as he was about to board a plane to Sydney.
The official Vietnam News Agency reported that Manh was paid $US10,000 ($A12,020) by a Vietnamese to smuggle the drug into Australia.The Australian Government plans to lobby Vietnam to commute Manh's death sentence to a jail term once the appeals process has been exhausted.Mr Downer today said the Government had played a part in achieving this outcome for four Australians originally sentenced to death in Vietnam."I've no idea what would happen in this particular case as I understand that Tony Manh has actually pleaded guilty - but in four previous cases, we have successfully appealed for clemency,'' he told Southern Cross Broadcasting."That's not to say we will be successful this time.''Mr Downe

Nguyen Kant.

The Vietnam Airlines plane had been flying for an hour after leaving Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday when an Australian man of Vietnamese descent took ill, airline officials told the state-run Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. A passenger on an Australian-bound plane vomited a nylon bag of white powder suspected to be heroin, causing the plane to return to Vietnam in the latest drug mule case between that country and Australia, officials said.The aircraft turned around and made an emergency landing atTan Son Nhat Airport, where the man coughed up two more bags of white powder. He was detained by police and taken to hospital doctors found 30 red nylon bags in the man's stomach. It identified him as 35-year-old Nguyen Kant.

In March, a man was arrested at the Ho Chi Minh City airport while checking in for a flight to Sydney. He was accused of trafficking 1.1 kg (2.4 pounds) of heroin.
At the same airport in February, an Australian woman was arrested after being caught with 1.5 kg of heroin in her luggage.
Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been arrested for trafficking heroin to Australia from Vietnam in recent years and at least four were sentenced to death.