PUTRAJAYA, March 20 — A Vietnamese woman today failed in her appeal at the Court of Appeal here to set aside her conviction and death sentence for trafficking in 2.1kg of methamphetamine.

Justice Datuk Aziah Ali, leading a three-member panel, dismissed her appeal after ruling that there was sufficient evidence to support Nguyen Thanh Ngoc Tuyet's conviction.

"We find that her conviction is safe. We uphold the High Court decision to convict and sentence her to death," said Aziah who presided on the panel with Justices Datuk Mohd Zawawi Salleh and Datuk Ahmadi Asnawi.

The mother of a child (Nguyen Thanh), 27, was sentenced to death by the High Court in George Town on July 18, 2012 after she was found guilty of trafficking in the drugs at the arrival hall of the Penang International Airport in Bayan Lepas at 10.10am on June 26, 2011.

In convicting Nguyen Thanh of the charge, the High Court had held that she was not an innocent carrier of the drugs which were found hidden in a compartment of the luggage she was carrying.

In her defence, Nguyen Thanh, a university dropout, claimed that she had picked up the bag (in which drugs were found) belonging to her friend Tran Tranh Tam and she had no knowledge of the contents of the bag.

The Court of Appeal had on last March 13 heard the testimonies of two police officers from Vietnam who respectively testified that they had recorded statements from Tran Tranh who had said that she did not tell Nguyen Thanh that the goods she was transporting was drugs instead told her they were clothes.

On October 11, 2013, the Court of Appeal allowed Nguyen Thanh's application to bring in new evidence in the form of two police statements and oral evidence of three Vietnamese witnesses including Tran Tranh in her bid to prove her innocence.

However, the court was informed that Tran Tranh, who was currently serving an eight-year jail sentence in a prison in Vietnam after she was convicted on a charge of selling drugs, chose not to come to testify.

A police officer from Vietnam, Tran Thi Lan Huong had on March 13 told the court that Tran Tranh could not come to the court for health reasons. She also explained to the court that although a subpoena was issued for Tran Tranh to testify in court, the Vietnamese Government could not force her to come, by virtue of their law on Human Rights where Tran Tranh was given the freedom to choose to come or not.

Nguyen has one final step of appeal, that is to appeal against the appellate's decision to the Federal Court.

She was represented by lawyer K. Simon Murali while deputy public prosecutor Norinna Bahadun appeared for the prosecution. — Bernama