Vietnam-born US citizen in Bangkok bomb plot extradited
LOS ANGELES - A US citizen accused of trying to bomb the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok five years ago has been extradited to Thailand, US justice officials confirmed Monday.
Vietnam-born Vo Duc Van, 46, is alleged to have been part of a gang that planted two bombs outside the embassy in June, 2001 in a protest against his homeland's communist rulers.
He was arrested stepping off a plane at John Wayne Airport in southern California five years ago and has been in custody ever since, fighting extradition on the grounds his act was politically motivated.
US justice officials confirmed to AFP Monday that Van has now been extradited to Thailand.
"He has actually left the country," a spokesman said. "I believe the plane left the United States on December 1."
Lawyers for Van petitioned US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in October, arguing against his extradition.
Van wrote in a letter accompanying the petition that he had disarmed the two bombs and had merely intended to make a political statement.
"It was a political message coordinated to occur on the day celebrating the army of South Vietnam," Van wrote. "As a Buddhist, I hold life sacred and would personally do nothing that would cause the loss of life."
Van said he feared Thai authorities would deliver him to Vietnam.
In May a US appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that Vo should be extradited to Thailand.
The panel ruled that the actions of the US-based group Government of Free Vietnam, to which Van belongs, did not constitute an official uprising against the Southeast Asian country.
The June 19, 2001, bomb attempt involved two packages, one left outside the wall of the embassy and another which was tossed into the compound.
The bombs were allegedly placed by an accomplice of Van's, and were wired to a cell-phone detonator but failed to explode when the device was triggered, the US appeal court ruling noted.
The Nation (.th) - December 12, 2006.
Anti-communist activist back to Thailand in embassy bomb case
LOS ANGELES - After five years of legal wrangling, a Vietnam-born anti-communist activist has been extradited to Thailand to face charges of attempting to bomb the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok, authorities said Monday.
Van Duc Vo, 46, was removed from a federal detention center in Los Angeles and flown to Thailand Dec. 1 after Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice signed an order to extradite him, said U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek.
Vo, a naturalized U.S. citizen who fled communist Vietnam in 1978, was arrested in October 2001 after returning from a trip to Bangkok, where authorities there accuse him of placing a backpack full of explosives in front of the Vietnamese embassy and tossing a bomb over the compound's fence.
The bombs were supposed to be activated by cell phones, but they failed to detonate, according to the Thai government, which charged Vo with "conspiring to use and using weapons of mass destruction during an attempted bombing."
Vo, a member of the Garden Grove-based exile group Government of Free Vietnam, contends he planted two bombs as a political act but decided at the last minute to defuse the devices.
He was initially charged by U.S. prosecutors, but American officials dismissed the case and agreed to surrender him to Thai officials under terms of an extradition treaty between the United States and the Southeast Asian nation.
Vo argued that the crime with which he was charged was a political offense, which was not a valid basis for extradition under terms of the treaty.
The "political exception" has long been used to prevent individuals involved in political uprisings from being returned to countries where they were persecuted for their political beliefs or actions.
The case reached the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel in May upheld a lower court's ruling that Vo should be extradited. The Supreme Court declined to review the case a few months ago, and Rice signed the extradition order in November, Mrozek said.
A call to Vo's attorney, Michael Mayock, was not immediately returned Monday.
During a hearing before the appeals panel last July, Mayock argued that Thai officials might be under pressure to transfer Vo to Vietnam, where he would likely face execution.
The Associated Press - December 11, 2006.
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