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| Cu Huy Ha Vu (centre) attends his trial at the Hanoi People's Courthouse |
HANOI, Vietnam— The defense team of a prominent Vietnamese dissident lawyer sentenced this week to prison has filed a complaint alleging the judge in his trial broke the law by obstructing their rights to hear all the evidence.
Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, the well-known son of a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader, was sentenced to seven years in prison and three years under house arrest at the one-day trial Monday on charges of conducting propaganda against the state.
One of Vu's four defense attorneys was ejected from the courtroom for repeatedly asking the judge to read in full or provide copies of 10 interviews Vu gave to foreign media, which were used as key evidence against him.
The three other attorneys walked out in protest, leaving Vu to defend himself.
In the complaint, posted at a popular dissident website and verified Tuesday by lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, the defense team accused the judge of violating their rights as attorneys and the rights of their client by refusing to provide the full evidence.
"There has been a serious violation of laws during the investigation, prosecution and at the court," said Trien, one of the three lawyers who left the court in protest. "According to the law, the evidence must be announced at the trial, but they did not. The trial, which was conducted in a hasty and imposing manner, cannot be in accordance with the law."
Vu was convicted of calling for an end to the one-party rule, defaming the state, demanding the abolishment of the Communist Party's leadership and calling the war against the United States a civil war.
He is the son of Cu Huy Can, a famous Vietnamese poet and revolutionary leader in the government formed by late President Ho Chi Minh when he declared independence from France in 1945.
Vu, who has a law doctorate from a French university but is not licensed to practice in Vietnam, has tried twice to sue Vietnam's prime minister, once over a controversial Chinese-built bauxite mining project and another time after the premier blocked class- action lawsuits from being filed. Both cases were thrown out of court.
Vu's prosecution was closely watched and under tight security. The U.S. government and New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the conviction and called for Vu's release.
Vietnam does not tolerate any threat to its one-party rule. Hanoi insists it has no political prisoners and maintains only lawbreakers are punished.
Jailed Vietnam dissident's lawyers lodge complaint
HANOI — Lawyers for the dissident son of a Vietnamese revolutionary leader on Tuesday challenged his seven-year jail sentence, saying the judges violated the law during his short trial.
In one of the communist nation's most politically charged cases in years, Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, was convicted on Monday of anti-state propaganda activities, including advocating an end to one-party communist rule.
During the trial, which lasted about half a day, one of his lawyers was expelled and the other three walked out after objecting that the court had not made public 10 allegedly incriminating documents mentioned in the indictment.
The lawyers' petition to the Supreme Court and other agencies, seen by AFP, states that withholding the documents was a violation of the law and prevented them from properly questioning Vu and arguing on his behalf.
"The accused's rights to self-defence were not secured," the petition states, calling on the relevant legal bodies to deal with the matter.
Vu, whose father was a member of revered founding president Ho Chi Minh's provisional cabinet from 1945, was charged after twice trying to sue Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
The United States said it was troubled by the apparent lack of due process in the trial and the "continued detention of several individuals" who tried to observe the proceedings.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga called the US comments "an interference into Vietnam's internal affairs".
"There are no so-called prisoners of conscience in Vietnam," Nga said in a statement posted on the communist government's official website.
Diplomatic sources on Tuesday said two high-profile dissidents were arrested outside the court complex during Vu's trial.
Pham Hong Son and Le Quoc Quan were detained Monday during unusually tight security in place for the hearing.
Both were believed to still be in police custody on Tuesday.
"As far as we understand they were standing outside" the court, and were arrested, one source said.
Son, a medical doctor, was earlier arrested in 2002, a few weeks after translating and publishing online an article entitled "What is democracy?" taken from the US State Department's website.
He spent more than four years in jail and a further three years under house arrest.
Quan, a lawyer, was jailed for about three months in 2007. He was released following protests from the United States.
He had been arrested and accused of taking part in "activities to overthrow the people's government", shortly after returning from a five-month fellowship with the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The foreign ministry was not immediately able to respond to a query about detentions outside the court where Vu was on trial.
Defence team of Vietnam dissident lawyer says judge violated law, constitution
HANOI, Vietnam — The defence team of a prominent Vietnamese dissident lawyer sentenced this week to prison has filed a complaint alleging the judge in his trial broke the law by obstructing their rights to hear all the evidence.
Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, the well-known son of a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader, was sentenced to seven years in prison and three years under house arrest at the one-day trial Monday on charges of conducting propaganda against the state.
One of Vu's four defence attorneys was ejected from the courtroom for repeatedly asking the judge to read in full or provide copies of 10 interviews Vu gave to foreign media, which were used as key evidence against him.
The three other attorneys walked out in protest, leaving Vu to defend himself.
In the complaint, posted at a popular dissident website and verified Tuesday by lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, the defence team accused the judge of violating their rights as attorneys and the rights of their client by refusing to provide the full evidence.
"There has been a serious violation of laws during the investigation, prosecution and at the court," said Trien, one of the three lawyers who left the court in protest. "According to the law, the evidence must be announced at the trial, but they did not. The trial, which was conducted in a hasty and imposing manner, cannot be in accordance with the law."
Vu was convicted of calling for an end to the one-party rule, defaming the state, demanding the abolishment of the Communist Party's leadership and calling the war against the United States a civil war.
He is the son of Cu Huy Can, a famous Vietnamese poet and revolutionary leader in the government formed by late President Ho Chi Minh when he declared independence from France in 1945.
Vu, who has a law doctorate from a French university but is not licensed to practice in Vietnam, has tried twice to sue Vietnam's prime minister, once over a controversial Chinese-built bauxite mining project and another time after the premier blocked class-action lawsuits from being filed. Both cases were thrown out of court.
Vu's prosecution was closely watched and under tight security. The U.S. government and New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the conviction and called for Vu's release.
Vietnam does not tolerate any threat to its one-party rule. Hanoi insists it has no political prisoners and maintains only lawbreakers are punished.
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