US dissident deported from Vietnam ahead of Bush visit
HANOI - A US national jailed on terrorism charges was deported from Vietnam after her early release from jail, a senior judge said, days before US
President George W. Bush arrives here for a summit.
Smiling and seemingly in good form, according to an airport official at Ho Chi Minh City, Thuong Nguyen "Cuc" Foshee flew out on board a United Airlines flight to the United States.
The move came as the leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies, including Bush, prepare for a weekend summit in Hanoi and the US Congress considers a bill to normalize trade relations with its communist former enemy.
Vietnam hopes the summit, its biggest ever diplomatic event, will underline its arrival on the global stage after gaining membership into the World Trade Organisation.
"She is in good form and smiling," an airport official at Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, said of Foshee.
"She was accompanied by several Vietnamese officials and police officers."
Bui Hoang Danh, the president of the People's Court in the city, told AFP that she left at 6:00 am (2300 GMT).
Foshee, 58, was one of three US citizens jailed for 15 months last Friday with four Vietnamese nationals, accused of trying to broadcast anti-communist radio messages.
But having already served 14 months, the outcome meant they would be freed in December and deported, a relatively light sentence seen as helping pave the way to establish permanent normal trade relations -- known under the acronym PNTR -- between Washington and Hanoi.
"We welcome the news," said a US embassy spokesperson in Hanoi after Foshee's release. "We continue to speak with the Vietnamese government regarding the other two Americans."
A diplomatic source close to the dossier said that one of the other two US citizens -- Huynh Bich "Linda" Lien, 51, and Le Van "Phu" Binh, 30, -- could also be released soon, but Danh denied that, saying they would be treated "in accordance with Vietnamese law."
A Vietnamese source directly linked Foshee's release to the trade issue.
"The rapid expulsion ... was implemented by the authorities with a view to quickly obtaining PNTR for Vietnam. The right person and the right moment have been chosen to obtain it," the source told AFP.
Phan Tanh, the vice president of the People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City, said earlier that officials had agreed to cut the 29 remaining days of her sentence after Foshee, 58, wrote voicing her regret and citing health grounds.
He said that in prison, Foshee "wrote a letter in which she expressed her regrets and evoked her advanced age, her poor health and her serious illness. She wishes to rejoin her family for treatment."
The activists, arrested in September last year, were accused by Vietnam of working with fellow dissident Nguyen Huu Chanh of the California-based exile group the Government of Free Vietnam, which Hanoi considers a terrorist group.
The three US nationals admitted they had broken Vietnamese law, but denied terrorism charges.
Also sentenced to 15 months' jail each -- plus an additional three years' house arrest -- were Vietnamese nationals Cao T p
vri, a US resident, and Tran Dat Phuong, Ho Van Giau and Ho Van Hien, all from southern Vietnam.
US Republican senator Mel Martinez from Florida had threatened to block the PNTR bill -- expected to go to a vote this week -- until there was progress in securing the release of Foshee, who has lived in the state.
US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who is due Wednesday in Hanoi, had also pressed for a free and fair trial process.
Adam Sitkoff, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, said Foshee's release boosted hopes that the trade bill would pass.
"I think the fact this case has come to a conclusion is a positive step and we are hopeful we will see action in the House and the Senate on Vietnam's PNTR early this week," he told AFP.
"We are hopeful this can get done by the start of
President Bush's visit."
Agence France Presse - November 13, 2006.
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