Rape charge hits Vietnam official
A senior Vietnamese official has been dismissed from his post by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai after being charged with raping an under-aged girl.
The deputy chairman of the government agency for sports, Luong Quoc Dung, is accused of raping the 13-year-old in a Hanoi hotel at the end of December. Police said the girl's neighbour had lured her to a hotel after Mr Dung asked the woman to find him a virgin. He was arrested on 19 February, two days after the neighbour surrendered.
According to the police, the girl's neighbour, Nguyen Thi Quynh Nga, told the girl they were going clothes shopping, but instead took her to a city centre hotel, where she was slapped and then raped by Mr Dung. The teenager, identified only as Y, was then given the "morning-after" contraceptive pill by Ms Nga and around $320 in cash, and told not to tell anybody about what happened, police said.
She was also promised more money if Mr Dung wanted to see her again, but the girl told her parents that day. Mr Dung, who has also been expelled from the Communist Party over the incident, could face the death penalty if found guilty of raping the girl.
BBC News - March 02, 2004
|