A Malawian man received the death penalty with a two-year reprieve for trafficking more than 1,140 grams of heroin into China.

The Intermediate People's Court of Guilin, a city in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, handed down the sentence last Friday.

Mpasu Gerrad, 29, was seized at the Guilin airport July 14, 2008 shortly after his arrival from Macao. Customs officials detected an illegal substance, but couldn't find it.

Gerrad was taken to a hospital, where doctors found, through computerized tomography, 88 capsules of compact powder in his stomach.

He confessed he had swallowed 1,140 grams of heroin before boarding the flight from Macao to Guilin. Gerrad said he was offered 3,500 US dollars for bringing the drug to dealers in Beijing.

Under Chinese law, heroin traffickers can get the death penalty when a drug transaction exceeds 50 grams.

A court spokesman said the court showed leniency in Gerrad's case because he confessed to his crime and had been stopped before the drugs were sold.

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2009)