Vietnam sentences American to death over heroin - newspapers

HANOI (Reuters) - An American man of Vietnamese origin was found guilty and sentenced to death for an attempt to smuggle more than 1 kg (2.2 lb) of heroin from Vietnam to Australia, state-run newspapers reported on Wednesday. Dinh Jason, born in 1973, was detained before boarding a flight to Australia at Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat International Airport on June 12, 2013, with the drugs found hidden in his underwear, the Hanoi police-run Capital Security newspaper said. Dinh told investigators he took the job to write off a $20,000 (11,881.42 pounds) debt and could receive $10,000 if the drugs were delivered. He was convicted and sentenced at a one-day hearing on Tuesday by the People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City. He has 15 days to appeal the verdict. Trafficking as much as 100 grams of heroin can be punished by life in prison or death in Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country has been executing prisoners by lethal injection since late 2013. It had previously used firing squads. Vietnam has long been used as a connecting point for moving heroin between Laos, Myanmar and China to other Asian countries and Australia. Several Australians of Vietnamese descent have been arrested for trafficking heroin in recent years. (Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Ho Binh Minh and Stephen Coates)