September 14, 2007: a Vietnamese court gave death sentences to three Vietnamese people, and life sentences to two others for drug trafficking, Vietnam News Agency reported.
Dao Duy Than, 33, Bui The My, 68, from northern Bac Ninh province, and Than's lover named Nguyen Thi Ha, 40, from northern Bac Giang province were sentenced to death.
When arresting Than and his wife, who got life imprisonment sentence, in August 2006, local police seized 350 gram of heroin.
Than admitted that he bought the heroin on credit with price of 140 million Vietnamese dong (8,750 U.S. dollars) from My. Than traded nearly 1.8 kg of heroin, and My nearly 1.5 kg in only two months, said the agency. The People's Court of Hanoi city also handed down jail terms of 1-20 years on four local people in the drug trafficking ring.

September 16, 2007: an Iranian court sentenced two teenagers to death on the charges of rape and murder, the state-owned Iran daily reported. The court in Shiraz, 900 kilometers south of Tehran sentenced Reza, 16, and Mohammed, 18, to death for raping and killing 9 year old Karim Tajik and 10 year old Mohammed Shiri in April, 2007.
The teenagers were also sentenced to three years in prison and 100 lashes.
According to the newspaper, the suspects confessed to raping the boys, tying them up and then tossing them into the river in Marvdasht town to drown them. There were two other suspects in the crime, one of whom was acquitted and the other sentenced to flogging.
In 2006, Iran almost doubled its number of executions, and takes second place after China, though if the ranking was made relative to population, it would handily take first place. There were at least 215 executions in 2006, compared to 113 in 2005. The real numbers on capital punishment could be much higher.
The authorities don’t provide official statistics and those provided come from Iranian newspapers, that apparently don’t not cover all the executions.