17 October 2003 :

Three men were executed in Vietnam for murder as part of the government's ongoing crackdown against violent crime.
The trio were put before a firing squad at dawn in the capital after their appeals for presidential clemency were rejected.
Nguyen Van Than, 40, had been sentenced to death for killing a gambling partner in Hanoi in April 1995.
He then fled to the southern province of Binh Phuoc but was arrested in November 1998 shortly after seriously injuring another gambler.
The two other men, Nguyen Hai Nam, 31, and Dang Tuan Hung, 34, had been sentenced to death for beating to death two gangsters in November and December 2000 in an underworld dispute.
State media said the two men had earned their living through robbery and drug trafficking.