Mystery over 'missing' beauty queen
HANOI - Thr mystery deepened today when a Vietnamese beauty queen
returned home after disappearing for more than a week, allegedly
having been kidnapped by the well-connected, lovestruck son of a
senior police officer.
Pham Thi Mai Phuong, who was crowned Miss Vietnam in
September last year, disappeared on August 5 in the north-eastern
port city of Haiphong while heading home after attending an English
class at a language school.
However, in circumstances that remain far from clear, the
18-year-old was reunited with her family last night, according to
her younger brother, Pham Anh Huy.
"My sister is now at the house of my grandmother and my parents
are with her there," he told AFP. Asked if Phuong had been
kidnapped, he said: "It is difficult to say because it concerns many
people."
Further deepening the mystery is a denial by Phuong's father, Pham
Thanh Hung, over his wife's comments on Tuesday that a group of
unidentified men had surrounded their house in the early hours of
that morning and threatened to kill him.
"No, no, no, maybe my wife was afraid of something, maybe she
missed our daughter very much," he told Radio Free Asia's (RFA)
Vietnamese service yesterday. "Nothing, nothing happened."
RFA on Monday, citing a close family source, said Phuong was
kidnapped by a friend, Nguyen Binh Khanh, who did not want her
to leave Vietnam for Britain where she had been awarded a
scholarship by Luton University.
Apparently, Khanh, a police officer and son of Haiphong City
Police Chief Nguyen Binh Doan, threatened to kill Phuong and then
himself if she tried to leave the country, the US-government funded
network said.
On Tuesday, the state-run Tien Phong newspaper, reporting from
Haiphong, said Phuong was stopped by a group of men who
bundled her into a car and drove off. It also said the son of a
high-ranking police officer was involved in the case, but did not
name Khanh.
The official press yesterday reported Phuong's return home quoting
a letter, purportedly written by her and sent to Haiphong city
newspapers, in which she denied she had been kidnapped and said
she was travelling with friends.
However, many newspapers cast doubts on this version of events,
with the Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the military mouthpiece, saying
many "absurd and intolerable" details remained unanswered.
Police in Haiphong, which is considered one of the country's most
crime-ridden cities, where corruption is rife, refused to release any
details on the case.
Two days after Phuong's disappearance, her father Hung sent a
letter to Doan, the city police chief, and to the Ministry of Public
Security saying his family were living in fear over their daughter's
fate.
On the same day, Doan telephoned Hung and told him not to
circulate the letter because he would be able to find Phuong, Hung
told the Tien Phong in comments published yesterday.
Miss Vietnam, however, did not return immediatelly and so Hung
also sent another appeal to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, his
deputy Nguyen Tan Dung, and Minister of Public Security Le
Hong Anh.
Phuong was awarded a scholarship worth more than $US56,000
($85,000) to study for a degree in business management at Luton
University, just north of London. She is supposed to start her
classes on September 15.
She told reporters late last month she was honoured to be able to
attend a university abroad but would return to Vietnam after
graduation.
Agence France Presse - August 14, 2003.
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