Vietnam Police Officers Charged for Torturing Suspects during Murder Case

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Torture is systemic in the one-party Vietnam, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security reported that there were 226 deaths of detainees in police stations between October 2011 and September 2014.

The police said most of the deaths were caused by illness and suicides, however, families of the victims said they died from police torture.

By Vu Quoc Ngu | May 13, 2015

Vietnam’s Supreme People’s Procuracy has criminally prosecuted two police officers in the southern province of Soc Trang who allegedly tortured and forced innocent men to accept their responsibility in a murder case.

Nguyen Hoang Quan, 38, and Trieu Tuan Hung, 34, chief investigators were charged with using corporal punishments in a case police in Soc Trang province had wrongfully detained six men after the death of a local resident in 2013.

The men became suspects because they had quarreled with the victim days before he was found dead on the road in June 2013, with multiple stab wounds.

Police only released them in February 2014 after a teenager showed up in December 2013 and confessed that she and her girlfriend had robbed and killed the man.

After their release, the men filed complaints saying that their confessions to the killing were coerced.

Hung reportedly handcuffed two of the men to a high window so that only the tips of their toes touched the ground. He then punched their bellies and hit them with a baton.

He also put ice on the genitals of one of the suspects.

Officer Quan attacked another by grasping his hair, smashed his head into the wall, slapped his face and beat his back with a baton.

Pham Van Nui, a 57-year-old Soc Trang prosecutor who approved the arrest of the six men, received negligence charges. Prosecutors said Nui had approved the detention without strong evidence.

The Soc Trang provincial People’s Procuracy in January paid out nearly VND500 million ($23,435) to compensate for wrongful accusations.

Torture is systemic in the one-party Vietnam, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security reported that there were 226 deaths of detainees in police stations between October 2011 and September 2014.

The police said most of the deaths were caused by illness and suicides, however, families of the victims said they died from police torture.

In 2014, Vietnam ratified the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. However, the police power abuse is not solved. Four people have been found dead in police stations so far this year.