HONG KONG: Three Australians - including two teenagers - were given prison sentences of up to 13 years and four months yesterday in Hong Kong for trying to smuggle heroin stuffed in condoms to Australia.

Lawyers for the defendants, all from Sydney, asked the judge to give their clients light sentences because they were naive, vulnerable young people recruited by a crime syndicate promising quick money and a vacation to Hong Kong.

Deputy High Court Judge Kim Longley sentenced the youngest defendant, Chris Ha Vo, a 16-year-old fast food worker, to nine years in prison. The other teenage defendant, hairdresser Rachel Ann Diaz, 18, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months.

The third defendant, unemployed Hutchinson Tran, 23, got 13 years, four months in prison.

The trio stood emotionless as the sentences were read.

Longley said Tran was an adult when he committed his crimes and played a more active role than Vo and Diaz, supplying them with the drugs and condoms and arranging hotel accommodations for the two.

"I'm satisfied your roles can be distinguished" from Tran's, Longley said to Vo and Diaz.

The trio were arrested April 12, 2005, in a hotel room with 701 grams of heroin stuffed in condoms, prosecutors said. They planned to swallow the condoms and act as "drug mules" smuggling the narcotics to Sydney, prosecutors said.

The heroin had a street value of HK$325,000 (US$40,000), prosecutors said.

The trio pleaded innocent in August to charges of trafficking in a dangerous drug. But in December, Tran and Vo changed their pleas to guilty. Diaz later also pleaded guilty.

Announcing the sentences, Longley also said Vo co-operated with police and that Diaz had a history of abuse that triggered behavioral problems.

Source: China Daily/agencies