An appeals court in Vietnam has upheld the death sentence of an Australian man of Vietnamese origin for trafficking heroin, a court official said today.

"Trinh Huu was given a death sentence by the appeal court of the Supreme People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday," a court clerk said.

Huu was aged 53 when he was found guilty last December of trafficking about two kilogrammes (4.4 pounds) of heroin in southern Vietnam after his arrest one year earlier near the Cambodian border.

His three Vietnamese accomplices were given jail terms from 15 years to life.

Communist Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws, and Huu could face the firing squad within about one year.

However, foreigners are rarely executed.

Last year, 111 people were sentenced to death in Vietnam, according to information compiled from state media, and 48 Vietnamese were executed.