Escaped death sentence, U60 continues to trade 'white death'

The People's Court of Nghe An province has just brought the defendants Lu Van Thi (born in 1963), Lu Thi Thanh (born in 1979), both residing in Muong Noc commune, Que Phong district, and Tran Van Binh (born in 1979), residing in Dien Phong commune, Dien Chau district, to trial for the crime of "Illegal trading of narcotics". This is the third time defendant Thi has committed a drug-related crime. It is worth mentioning that Thi had previously beendeath sentence.

3 defendants at the trial. Photo: Tran Vu

In 1998, Lu Van Thi was sentenced to death by the People's Court of Nghe An province for "Illegally transporting narcotics". Thi later appealed for a reduced sentence, but the appeals court rejected the appeal and upheld the death sentence.

To find a chance to live, Lu Van Thi wrote a petition for clemency to the President. On September 18, 1999, the President commuted the sentence from death to life imprisonment for defendant Lu Van Thi. After 16 years of serving his prison sentence, and undergoing several amnesties, in early 2014, Lu Van Thi was able to reintegrate into the community.

After a difficult journey, Thi escaped death and returned to reunite with his family. However, Thi did not take advantage of that precious opportunity to rebuild his life and break away from drugs, but instead reoffended. Specifically, in September 2015, Thi was sentenced to 30 months in prison for "Illegal drug trafficking".

In July 2017, Thi finished serving his sentence and returned to reunite with his wife and 5 children. It was thought that after a life of hardship due to drug involvement, the father of 5 children would turn to good, to set an example for his children and become the pillar of the family. However, Thi still had the same old problems. At the end of 2021, Lu Van Thi was once again caught up in the law because of drugs.

According to the case file, within more than 1 month (from October 2021 to November 2021), Lu Thi Thanh sold heroin to Tran Van Binh 3 times. To have "goods" to sell to customers, Thanh said she bought heroin from Lu Van Thi. For each package of drugs sold, Thanh "profited" from 300,000 to 500,000 VND.

As for Binh, this subject confessed to "helping buy" heroin for a customer. For each package of heroin, Binh was paid 500,000 VND. On November 15, 2021, while Binh was on his way from the mountains to the lowlands carrying 5 packages of heroin, he was caught red-handed by the police.

Based on Binh's testimony, the investigation agency arrested Lu Thi Thanh. During the house search, Thanh voluntarily handed over 1 package of drugs to the investigation agency. Regarding the origin of the drugs, Thanh said she bought them from Lu Van Thi. However, working with the investigation agency, Thi admitted to selling Thanh only 2 packages of pink pills. The investigation agency conducted a confrontation between Thi and Thanh but there was not enough evidence to conclude that Thi was the person who sold drugs to Thanh 3 times.

Defendant Lu Van Thi was imprisoned for the third time with a 17-year sentence. Photo: Tran Vu

Therefore, the investigation agency determined that Lu Thi Thanh must bear criminal responsibility for the act of buying and selling more than 226 grams of drugs. Tran Van Binh must bear responsibility for nearly 200 grams of drugs. Lu Van Thi must bear responsibility for nearly 40 grams of drugs.

For the third time committing a drug-related crime, defendant Thi appeared quite calm when appearing in court. Thi slowly confessed his actions. At the trial, Thi also admitted that he only sold 2 packages of opium to defendant Thanh, but the defendant did not admit to the previous purchases that Thanh said he bought from Thi.

When asked by the court why he had been in prison many times, including being sentenced to death, but still reoffended, Thi mumbled that it was due to difficult circumstances. This defendant asked for a lighter sentence because of his old age and frequent illness.

Considering that in this case, defendant Lu Van Thi had the aggravating circumstance of recidivism, the court therefore sentenced him to 17 years in prison. The two defendants Lu Van Thanh and Tran Van Binh were sentenced to 20 and 19 years in prison, respectively.

Thus, in more than 20 years, Lu Van Thi has been in and out of prison 3 times, including with the highest sentence. Will this third time in prison, a 17-year sentence, make this man stop when he is nearly 60 years old?