Vietnam releases more than 1,000 prisoners in amnesty

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday November 1, 2006

Ho Chi Minh City- Vietnam has released more than 1,000 prisoners in a general amnesty, a security official said Wednesday. It was the second large-scale amnesty in three months for Vietnam, which is preparing to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum later this month.

"They were all released yesterday from almost all the prisons throughout the country," said Nguyen Van Linh, deputy director of the Prison Management Department under the Public Security Ministry.

The amnesty was offered to 1,022 prisoners who were serving their sentences and 14 others who were temporarily waived from serving their sentences. No high-profile prisoners were known to have been freed.

"These prisoners have paid cash fines as their additional punishment," said another official from the prison department.

The official added that neither former British rocker and convicted paedophile Gary Glitter nor former Vietnamese state official Luong Quoc Dung had been released, saying that those convicted of drug trafficking, human trafficking and child molestation were not considered for amnesty.

Glitter, 62, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, is serving a three-year sentence after being found guilty of sexually assaulting underage Vietnamese girls. Luong Quoc Dung, former Vietnamese sports deputy minister, is serving an eight-year sentence for raping a 13-year-old girl. Vietnam earlier amnestied 5,300 prisoners in August ahead of the country's National Day.

One high-profile prisoner released in August was the internet dissident Pham Hong Son, who had served four years of a sentence for espionage for his communications with overseas democracy activists. Son, 37, has been under police surveillance since his release.

Vietnam is still holding Nguyen Vu Binh, 37, a former writer for an official Communist Party publication who was sentenced in 2003 to seven years' imprisonment for espionage.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency