Vietnam grants clemency to Australian drug runners

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Vietnam will grant clemency to two Australians facing execution in Hanoi for drug smuggling, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on Monday after talks with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd.

Dung, in Australia to mark 35 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, said Vietnam's President had agreed to clemency for the two Australians.

"Building upon the excellent friendship between our two countries and on humanitarian grounds, I have informed that the Vietnamese president has decided to grant clemency to two Vietnamese-Australians charged with drug trafficking," he said.

Sydney woman Jasmine Luong was sentenced to death by firing squad earlier this year. She was arrested at Hanoi's international airport in February 2007 after customs officers found 1.55 kg (3.4 lb) of heroin hidden in her shoes and luggage.

Another Australian, Nguyen Hong Viet, was sentenced to death in September 2007 after being arrested as he boarded a plane to Sydney with nearly 950 grams of heroin concealed in his clothes.

Australia strongly opposes the death penalty. But under Vietnam's tough anti-drug laws, trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin is punishable by death or life in prison.

Australia's Vietnamese community numbers about 250,000, with a further 10,000 Vietnamese students in Australia and about 10,000 students in Vietnam doing courses run by Australian schools and universities.