Vietnamese sentenced over DPRK man's death

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia - Doan Thi Huong, a Vietnamese woman, was on Monday sentenced to three years and four months of imprisonment for her role in the poisoning death of a man from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at a Malaysian airport in 2017. She pleaded to the lesser charge filed by the prosecutors of "voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means." If convicted of the original murder charge, she would have faced mandatory capital punishment.

The prison term will be counted from Feb 15, 2017, the date she was arrested. Huong's counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told reporters that the defense team expected Huong would be released by the first week of May, with the two years already served and the remaining one-third granted remission.

In March, Malaysian prosecutors withdrew the murder charge against Siti Aisyah, the Indonesian woman who was charged together with Huong in the case. Siti Aisyah was released on March 11 but Huong's application to have her murder charge dropped was rejected by the attorney-general.