AN illiterate 80-year-old woman has been given a suspended death sentence by a court for smuggling opium, media reports said yesterday (Apr 16).

The woman, Zhang Shouzhen from Guizhou Province in southwestern China, was going to use the 10,000 yuan (US$1,290) she earned from smuggling 8 kilograms of opium to Beijing to pay for her grave plot, Xinhua said.

"I had wanted the money for a good plot of land as my graveyard," Xinhua quoted Zhang as saying at her trial, where she broke down in tears.

Zhang will remain in prison for two years, after which, if she displays good behavior, her sentence could be commuted to a life term.

A Guizhou court heard that Zhang was offered the money by a drug dealer and got her daughter and the daughter's ex-husband to help her, but the three were caught when they got off the train south of Beijing.

The daughter and her ex-husband were jailed for 15 years and 12 years respectively.

Xinhua said Zhang's sentence was handed down recently, but gave no date and did not say if the drug dealer had been caught.

Editor: Wing