Vietnam's biggest drugs trail opens

Twenty-two people have gone on trial in Nam Dinh in the north of Vietnam in what police have described as the country's biggest drugs case.

The defendants are charged with smuggling more than five hundred kilos of heroin and opium from from Laos to Vietnam, and many of them could face the death sentence if found guilty.

Police say the arrests followed the breaking up of a major drugs trafficking ring that had been operating since the early 1990s.

The trial is expected to last about twelve days.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service