Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, was arrested
in the coastal province of Quang Ninh in 2012 on charges of drug trafficking,
local newspaper Thanh Nien News reports.
She was sentenced to death two years later. When she appealed, the court upheld her sentence.
But she may avoid the gallows after all. The Vietnamese penal
code forbids the execution of pregnant women or mothers with children under the age of 36 months and
orders that in those cases the death penalty should be converted to life
imprisonment.
Investigators discovered that Hue paid a 27-year-old male inmate
more than $2,000 in August 2015 for his semen and syringes, which they say she
used to inseminate herself. The baby is due in April, and Hue's sentence will
officially be reduced to life imprisonment after the birth.