Rehabilitation practitioner beaten to death by ‘eagle’ for refusing to bow

After a 3-day pause, on April 29, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City reopened the second first instance trial for defendant Thai Ngoc Dung (43 years old, native of Binh Duong); Phan Van Tien (41 years old, in Hoc Mon) and 4 accomplices for the crime of “Murder”.

Before that, at the end of July 2017, at the first instance hearing, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendants Dung and Tien to 14 years in prison each, and the remaining accomplices from 5 to 10 years in prison for the crime of “True.” intent to cause injury”.

Then, at the appellate session, the High People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City canceled the first-instance judgment and returned the additional investigation file.

During the additional investigation, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuracy changed the charge against the defendants from ‘Intentionally causing injury’ to ‘Murder’.

According to the prosecution, on April 4, 2015, the People’s Committee of Tan Thoi Hiep Ward, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City issued a decision to bring Tran Vu Nam (from Nam Dinh) who is a drug addict to Nhi Xuan Social Facility for management. treatment, cutting off concentrated detoxification.

On the morning of April 10, 2015, Nam was transferred to Health Recovery Area 1 for monitoring. The officers in charge took Nam and practitioner Pham Van Thao into room 8 of the Health Rehabilitation Zone 1. In this room there were 23 students, divided into 3 trays (the division of the hierarchy in the room).

In which, tray 1 is the objects of authority in the room, including: Thai Ngoc Dung (self-proclaimed head of the department), Le Tan Tai, Ho Hoai My, Nguyen Ngoc Quy, Tran Van Tuan, Le Thanh Truyen; tray 2 is headed by Phan Van Tien. According to the implicit law here, when the officer opens the door of the room, only the students from tray 1 can see, tray 2 and tray 3 must stand facing the wall.

Nam and Thao entered the room and were immediately beaten by the “eagle” Thai Ngoc Dung and forced to lower their heads. Thao obeyed the order, so he was spared, but Nam reacted, so he was beaten by the US and Tien, and kicked him into the corner of the wall, causing Nam to fall into a bucket of urine near the toilet.

Angered, Nam Co argued with “eagle” and a group of juniors, so Tien, My, and Dung, Tuan, Quy and Truyen stormed into the council to beat the council. Seeing that Nam was unconscious, they immediately poured water to wake him up and continued to fight. Until the second fainting, Nam was spared.

When the whole room went to have lunch, Nam did not eat because he was tired, out of breath and died before being taken to the hospital, due to a traumatic brain injury.

At trial, the defendants confessed to the crime.

Considering that defendant Dung is the organizer, the remaining defendants are practitioners and directly committed the offence. The defendants Tien, Truyen and Quy have previous convictions that have not been cleared of criminal records and are in the case of dangerous recidivism.

Regarding the opinions of the victim’s representatives and lawyers about the irresponsible examination of the responsibilities of the staff at Nhi Xuan facility, leading to the addiction treatment practitioners being beaten to death, the jury said that the trial process, The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City has returned documents for clarification.

However, the People’s Procuracy and the People’s Procuracy of Ho Chi Minh City replied that they did not have enough grounds to believe that these officials were irresponsible. Due to the limitation of the trial, the Trial Panel did not consider the responsibility of the staff at Nhi Xuan facility in this case.

According to the trial panel, the regulations of Nhi Xuan Facility at the time of the case did not specify the responsibilities of each individual warden. Through this case, the trial panel recommended that the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs and other detoxification facilities study and issue specific and clear regulations, clearly defining the responsibilities of each individual officer. re-education, camp management as well as strengthening the management of detoxification trainees responsible for cases like the one that happened.

For the above reasons, the trial panel decided to sentence defendant Dung to 18 years in prison, and defendant Tien to 16 years; The other defendants also received between 13 and 16 years in prison.

Thanh Phuong