Read Why Vietnam Court Overturned Death Sentence For Nigerian Drug Trafficker (Photo)

33 year old Nigerian man, Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu, should be smiling now as a Vietnam court yesterday reduced a death sentence previously handed to him for bringing methamphetamine into Vietnam, to life imprisonment.

Ejiogu Benjamin Ikechukwu was in June 2012 apprehended with 3.3 kilograms of the banned drug concealed in metal tubes and a laptop charger in his luggage as he flew to Tan Son Nhat in Vietnam.

When he was arrested, Ejiogu said he only planned to come to Vietnam to buy clothes to resell them in Nigeria and had no idea about the drug in his luggage. According to him, a man asked him to carry the tubes and the charger to Vietnam and that someone would pick them up.

A Vietnam court heard the case brought against him by Vietnam police in August 2013 and sentenced him to death, but he appealed the verdict. Vietnam Supreme Court then canceled the verdict, ordering a new investigation. Investigators could not track down the people who had used him as a drug mule.

According to Vietnam law, anyone convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in Vietnam face the death penalty.