Vietnam welcomes extradition of U.S. suspect in alleged embassy bomb plot
HANOI - Vietnam on Thursday welcomed the extradition to Thailand of a U.S. citizen accused of trying to bomb the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok five years ago.
Van Duc Vo was removed from a prison in Los Angeles on December 1 and flown to Thailand after Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice signed an extradition order. A U.S. citizen born in Vietnam, Vo is a member of the California-based Government of Free Vietnam, an anti-communist group that Vietnam considers a terrorist organization.
"Vo was the ringleader of a plot to bomb the Vietnamese embassy in Thailand," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said during a media briefing on Thursday.
Dung called Vo's extradition a necessary step "to clearly demonstrate the rule of law and uphold Vietnamese law in fighting terrorism."
It was not known whether Vo would eventually be extradited to Vietnam or tried in Thailand.
Vo, who fled communist Vietnam in 1978 for the U.S., was arrested in the U.S. in October 2001 after returning from a trip to Bangkok. Thai authorities accused 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 detonated by cell phones but failed to explode, according to Thai authorities, who charged Vo with "conspiring to use and using weapons of mass destruction during an attempted bombing."
Vo contends he planted the bombs in June 2001 to make a political statement against communism but decided to defuse them at the last minute after he realized the U.S. Embassy was nearby.
The Associated Press - December 14, 2006.
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