Three foreigners held for Vietnam embassy bomb plot in Philippines
MANILA - Three foreigners including US and Swiss citizens with Vietnamese origins have been detained by Philippine
police on charges of plotting to bomb Hanoi's embassy here, police said Friday.
One suspect, Vietnamese-American Vu Van Doc, was also held for his alleged role in a failed bombing attempt
on the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok last June and a failed arson attack on the Vietnamese mission in
London in 2000, they said.
Police raided a townhouse in the San Juan suburb of Manila on Thursday and arrested Vu, 41, Swiss citizen
Hyuh Thuan Ngoc and 62-year-old Makoto Ito of Japan, a police report said.
The authorities seized bomb-making equipment, it said, adding the three were on a "mission to bomb the
Vietnamese embassy here".
The Vietnamese embassy in Manila said it had no knowledge of the arrests.
In May, 37 people were jailed for up to 20 years in Ho Chi Minh City for a wave of abortive sabotage attacks
said to have been organized by the armed Free Vietnam Movement from Thai and Cambodian territory.
Thai police on Thursday announced the arrest in Manila of a Vietnamese-American, whose name they listed as
Vun Duc Vo, 46. It was not immediately clear if it was the same man arrested in the Philippines.
Thai police said the man was believed to be a member of the Free Vietnam Movement, which opposes Hanoi's
communist government.
Three men, including two other Vietnamese-Americans, were arrested earlier by Thai police after two bombs
weighing eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) were planted outside the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok on June 19.
The devices failed to detonate and were destroyed in controlled explosions.
Thai police said a fourth suspect fled to the United States after the Bangkok attack.
"Investigators will make an extradition request if finger printing proves he is Vun Duc Vo," Assistant Thai police
chief Sombat Amonvivat said.
Vu is also a suspect in the failed arson attack on the Vietnamese embassy in London on September 2 last year,
Philippine police said.
They said a lower court in Manila authorized a search warrant of the suspects' residence which uncovered
"improvised devices for making phone bombs, detonating cords, one bag of blasting caps, assorted cellular
phones, and a 12-volt battery."
Police gave no other background information on the two other suspects.
Police and bureau of immigration sources said the police planned to present the three at a formal press
conference in the coming days. The plot in Manila was uncovered ahead of Vietnam's national day on Sunday.
The Free Vietnam Movement was organized by Vietnamese immigrants to the United States after the 1975
defeat of the US-backed south in the Vietnam War.
Agence France Presse - August 31, 2001.
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