Death-row prisoner gets pregnant in solitary

HANOI, Oct 12 (Reuters) A death-row inmate held in solitary confinement in Vietnam for almost a year is pregnant and is seeking a pardon to give birth, a newspaper reported today.

The Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper quoted a police doctor as saying tests in September confirmed that convicted heroin trafficker Nguyen Thi Oanh, 39, was then 11 weeks pregnant.

The report said it was the first time that a death-row prisoner had become pregnant in Vietnam and that police were investigating how it had happened.

Oanh's husband was serving a jail sentence at another prison in another province, the newspaper said.

Oanh was due to face a firing squad this year after losing her appeal against the death sentence she received last year for possession of a billion dong (63,000 dollars) worth of heroin.

Trafficking more than 600 grams of heroin in Vietnam is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

REUTERS DKB BD929