Le Van Manh while living with his family. He was executed on Sep 22. (Photo: Ho Chi Minh City Police via RFA)
By UCA News reporter
Sep 26 2023
Vietnam executed a man convicted of rape and murder ignoring the mercy pleas of various countries including the European Union and global rights groups as the Communist nation continues to be one of the world’s top executioners.
In a Facebook post on Sep 22, Lawyer Le Van Luan said that Le Van Manh, 41, who was convicted of the alleged rape and murder of a girl in 2005 was executed, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Sep 23.
“News and official documents said that defendant Le Van Manh was executed on the morning of Sep 22, 2023,” Luan said.
Hoa Binh Provincial Police execution facility also confirmed the execution through a death notice issued on Sep 22.
The execution was carried out a day after the European Union delegation along with the embassies of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Norway issued a joint statement calling on Hanoi to stay the execution of the sentence.
“We strongly oppose the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances, which is a cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment and can never be justified, and advocate for Vietnam to adopt a moratorium on all executions,” the statement said.
This was the second statement from Western diplomats criticizing the death penalty in Vietnam in the last two months.
Nguyen Thi Viet, Manh’s mother told RFA that her son had said that he had been “tortured to force him to confess” during the trials.
The court had refused a request to examine his body for evidence of physical torture during the trial, the report stated.
International rights groups including Amnesty have for years criticized Vietnam for its secretive policy towards capital punishment. Amnesty ranks Vietnam as one of the biggest executioners in the world and the biggest in Southeast Asia.
“Secrecy in North Korea and Vietnam, as well as restricted access to information in several other countries, also continued to impair a full assessment of global trends,” Amnesty said in its global report titled “Death Sentences and Executions 2021” released in 2022, CNN reported.
Amnesty’s report pointed out that there were more than 119 new death sentences handed down in 2021, among which 93 were for drug-related offenses.
According to previously classified government data made public in 2017, 429 executions had taken place between 2013 and 2016 – putting the country behind only China and Iran in its use of the death penalty.
Rights groups, referring to partial official data, claimed death sentences increased by 30 between October 2020 and July 2021.
Vietnam had more than 1,200 people on death row by the end of 2021, an Amnesty report said, adding that the country is among three communist states including China and North Korea that do not reveal details of capital punishment and executions.
In Vietnam, the death penalty is handed down for 22 offenses including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes.
Economic crimes such as graft and corruption, fraud, and embezzlement for 500 million dong (US$20,510) or more of state property, illegal production and trade of food, foodstuffs, and medicines are also punishable by the death penalty.
The only exceptions to the death penalty are those 75 or older, juvenile offenders, pregnant women, and women nursing children under 36 months old at the time the crime was committed or being tried – in these cases, the death penalty is excluded or commuted to life imprisonment.
According to Vietnamese law, officials convicted of corruption charges can be spared from the death penalty if they pay back at least 75 percent of the profits they illicitly obtained.
Until 2011, executions were carried out by a seven-man firing squad wherein the convicts were blindfolded and tied to stakes.
In November 2011, the Vietnamese parliament introduced execution with lethal injection. The first execution with lethal injection was in 2013. – UCA News
