HANOI - VIETNAM on Friday removed rape and several other offences from the list of crimes punishable by death, an official said, but deputies maintained capital punishment for drug trafficking and murder.

'This morning, the national assembly approved some amendments to the criminal code,' an official from the National Assembly office told AFP.

He said that, in addition to rape, deputies voted to remove six other offences from the list: smuggling, giving bribes, counterfeiting money and bonds, hijacking ships and planes, destruction of weapons and military equipment, and appropriation of property through swindling.

Seventy-five per cent of deputies in the communist-dominated National Assembly endorsed the amendments to the Penal Code, which take effect January 1 next year, state media reported.

Vietnam last reduced the number of death penalty crimes in 1999, and with the latest amendments the Penal Code still includes 22 crimes punishable by death.

Dozens of people each year are sentenced in Vietnam to die before a firing squad, mostly for murder and drug trafficking. -- AFP