Source: VNA

Vietnam has detained Richard Nguyen, a Vietnamese born American citizen, on the charge of “terrorist acts against the people’s administration”.

Richard Nguyen, whose real name is Nguyen Quoc Quan, lives in ElkGrove, California, USA, and entered Vietnam on April 17, 2012 through Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

Shortly after his arrival, the Investigation and Security Agency under the Ministry of Public Security arrested the US citizen charged with carrying out terrorist acts against the people’s administration.

The investigation agency decided to prosecute the case and detain Nguyen for four months to further investigate the charge under Article 84 of the Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Nguyen is among those who are aided and abetted by the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, an outlawed organisation founded in 1980 by Hoang Co Minh, former Vice Admiral of the Saigon Navy, in an attempt to overthrow the Vietnamese state.

In June 1981, the Front established its “resistance base” in Udon, Thailand, to gather young people who had fled from Vietnam and were staying at refugee camps in Thailand and Indonesia, for training. After the course, these people were sent back to Vietnam to carry out acts of sabotage against the government.

At a September 1982 Convention in Udon, Minh founded the so-called Vietnam Reform Party, a nerve organisation known as the Viet Tan Party to guide all the Front’s activities. Its aim was to ‘sabotage and overthrow the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and eliminate the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam’.

Since 1982 the Viet Tan Party has sent hundreds of its members to Vietnam for various false purposes, i.e. to visit relatives, travel, and undertake investment projects. In fact, they trained and marshalled forces to launch terrorist and sabotage acts, cause social disruption and distribute materials against the Vietnamese State. However, they were all uncovered by the Vietnamese security agency.

Although Vietnam brought the Viet Tan Party to court in 1987, 1988, 1990 and 2008, the outlawed organisation has not given up its activities, and continues to incite demonstrations and social disturbances against Vietnam.

The Ministry of Public Security included the Viet Tan Party in its list of terrorist organisations, and informed the US of the fact on April 4, 2007./.