China sentences Mongolian drug smuggler to death

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Mongolian citizen has been sentenced to death in far western China for smuggling 20.2 kg (44.4 lb) of heroin, Mongolian news agency Montsame said on Monday.

The Mongolian, identified as Damdin, 37, was arrested in August last year while crossing the border into China from a central Asian republic, Montsame said.

He was sentenced to death in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, a western region that borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan as well as Mongolia.

Previous cases of Mongolian citizens arrested as drug "mules" had resulted in sentences of 15 years to life in jail, Montsame said.

Representatives of the Mongolian embassy in Beijing could not be reached immediately for comment.

Rights groups estimate China executes about 10,000 people a year, more than any other country in the world.

China is particularly sensitive about drug sales and trafficking because opium addiction is blamed by some for the country's weakness in standing up to Western powers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Paul Tait)