Drug smuggler to be executed on Monday

BEIJING - Mitsunobu Akano, a Japanese citizen who was convicted of attempting to smuggle drugs from China to Japan in 2006, will be executed on Monday, official sources said.

The Consulate of Japan in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning province, has received a letter from the Chinese government about Monday's execution, an official from the Japanese Embassy in China, who would not be named, told China Daily on Wednesday.

Embassy officials have also been told that another Japanese drug trafficker would be executed after Akano, but no further details are available.