Pakistan death sentence for woman

A court in Pakistan has, for the first time, sentenced a woman to death for drugs offences.

The court, in the city of Lahore, also fined the woman, 44-year-old Osfatu Bose Oweiye from Nigeria, 400,000 rupees ($6,925).

Oweiye was arrested in 1999 after officials from Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) found 20 kilograms of heroin in a Lahore hotel.

The sentence comes a day after Pakistani customs officials announced what they called their biggest-ever haul of heroin.

Men questioned

ANF officials alleged that Oweiye was the head of a drug-trafficking ring and had been involved in high-profile smuggling cases elsewhere.

Heroin production is on the rise in the region

They also said she had drugs convictions in other countries.

Oweiye's arrest four years ago came after police questioned five Nigerian men in connection with the discovery of the heroin in the Lahore hotel.

Police say the heroin was to be smuggled out of Pakistan to be sold in other countries.

On Tuesday, customs officials in western Pakistan said they had seized more than a tonne of heroin. They said it was the country's biggest-ever haul of the drug.

The raid came after a fierce gunfight following a tip-off in Balochistan Province near the Afghan border.

A number of suspected smugglers escaped.

Customs officials said the 1,350 kilograms of heroin were worth more than $500m on the international market. Officials said the heroin was of the highest quality, and suspect it was smuggled from neighbouring Afghanistan.

The UN International Narcotics Control Board says that opium cultivation in Afghanistan - used in heroin and other drugs - is now as widespread as in the 1990s.