China-Africa: China court sentences eight Africans to death
The five women and three men were convicted of trafficking drugs and were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by a court in Guangzhou city on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported.
In China the reprieve normally results in a death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, dependent on the prisoners behaviour over the next two years.
Four of those convicted were from Uganda, two were from Benin and two from Zimbabwe, it said.
The convictions came in six separate cases uncovered during the last two years.
The youngest person convicted was 22-year-old Itayi Rufaro from Zimbabwe, it said.
One other Zimbabwean, a woman, was also sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking, it added.
In the biggest bust, a Ugandan woman identified as Jean Ndawula Kirunda, 39, was convicted of trying to smuggle 1.98 kilograms of a heroin mixture into China in December 2007.
In May this year, Habiba Musa, 29, also from Uganda, was caught trying to smuggle 1.2 kilograms of cut heroin after ingesting the packaged drug apparently with the intent to retrieve it later.
Four of the nine convicted were aged in their 20s, it said.
Seven of the convicted traffickers were busted trying to smuggle drugs into Guangzhou’s Baiyun airport, with several flying in from Bangkok, in Thailand, it said.
(zimdaily)
Tags: africans in china