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The inmate, Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, was arrested in April 2012 for drug dealing and was handed a death sentence in 2014. She lodged an appeal the same year but it was rejected by the court.
According to local investigators, Hue bought sperm for VND50 million (USD2,239) from an inmate, Nguyen Tuan Hung, 27, who is serving a 30-month sentence. The male inmate apparently put his sperm into a plastic bag with a syringe twice in August. He and Hue then agreed on a place to pass on the sperm before she inseminated herself.
Hue was 25 weeks pregnant when Quang Ninh Police found out about her situation. She is expected to give birth in April and her sentence will be officially changed.
This is not the first case in which female inmates have avoided the death penalty. The Vietnamese law states that pregnant women and those with children under the age of three will have their death sentences reduced to life.
In 2006 Nguyen Thi Oanh also escaped her death sentence after police found she was 11-weeks pregnant when being incarcerated at a prison in Hoa Binh Province. Two staff were suspended for helping Oanh get pregnant by another inmate in the same prison.
