U.S. extradition of Vo Van Duc is necessary
HANOI - It is necessary to extradite Vo Van
Duc, the ring leader of an attempt of laying explosive at the
Vietnamese Embassy in Thailand on June 19, 2001, from the United
States to Thailand for trial, said a Vietnamese spokeswoman.
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh made
the remarks at a regular press conference here Thursday while
answering a question on Vietnam's reaction to a report saying that
the United States will extradite Vo Van Duc, an overseas
Vietnamese living in the United States, to Thailand for being
suspected to lay an explosive package at the Vietnamese Embassy in
Thailand.
"Vo Van Duc is a terrorist," Thanh said, adding that Vietnam
has provided the United States with evidence of his terrorist
crime committed abroad and in the Vietnamese territory.
On the other hand, she noted, since he is still holding
Vietnamese citizenship, and in order to carry out the anti-
terrorism fight seriously and effectively, Vo Van Duc should also
be brought to trial in Vietnam according to Vietnamese laws.
The spokeswoman also stressed, "We wish that the United States
and other countries concerned will have a consistent approach to
anti-terrorism fight and cooperation with Vietnam in preventing
and severely punishing the mastermind and those who carried out
terrorism acts against the Vietnamese state and people in the
country and the Vietnamese representatives offices abroad."
Xinhuanet - June 20, 2002.
Vietnam wants to try its Bangkok embassy attacker
HANOI - Vietnam said on Thursday it
also wanted to try a man due to be extradited to Thailand
from the United States to face trial on charges of hurling
bombs into the Vietnamese embassy compound in Bangkok
last year.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh told a
regular news briefing the extradition of Vietnamese-American
Vo Van Duc to Thailand was "necessary", but added that he
also needed to be tried in Vietnam where he still held
citizenship.
Thai police said at the time they defused two bombs that were
hurled over the wall of the embassy compound, but they
appeared to have been intended not to work as their
detonators contained no explosives.
Thanh described Duc, a 41-year-old member of the Free Vietnam movement opposed to the communists who
defeated U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975, as the ringleader in the June 2001 incident.
She called on the United States and other countries to
"cooperate with Vietnam in preventing and severely punishing the masterminds and culprits of terrorist acts"
against Vietnam.
A U.S. embassy spokesman said he was unable to comment.
Duc was arrested in Orange County, California, last October and charged with using weapons of mass destruction
in the attack on the embassy.
U.S. reports have quoted the Federal Bureau of Investigation as saying that Duc had connections with men
arrested in the Philippines after another failed bomb plot against the Vietnamese embassy in Manila last
September.
They said one of the men arrested in Manila was his brother.
Reuters - June 20, 2002.
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