Lawyer for Norwegian - Files Complaint Against Vietnam for Kidnapping

Lawyer for Norwegian

Elden lawyer Maria Hessen Jacobsen is now filing a complaint with Norwegian police for Vietnam's kidnapping of Norwegian citizen Thuan Duc Nguyen.

ABDUCTED: Thuan Duc Nguyen was abducted by Vietnamese authorities in Cambodia and taken to Vietnam. Photo: Private

After Thuan Duc Nguyen (52) disappeared, his family engaged lawyer Maria Hessen Jacobsen to get help.

Dagbladet has learned that Nguyen and Australian citizen Hiep Tran flew from Bangkok to Phnom Penh in Cambodia on September 15 to meet Vietnamese human rights activists. The last sign of life came on the morning of September 18, when the two were on their way to the city of Kaoh Andaet in southern Cambodia.

Kidnapped

The two had tickets back to Bangkok the next day, but the flight departed without them. According to the airline, they never boarded.

A few days ago, Vietnamese authorities confirmed that the two men are detained in Vietnam.

Lawyer Hessen Jacobsen is filing a complaint about the abduction with Norwegian police.

• The complaint is directed at persons who acted on behalf of the Vietnamese state, and at leaders who allowed this to happen. It must also be investigated whether Cambodian officials were involved in the abduction, says Hessen Jacobsen.

The lawyers expect the investigation to be assigned to Kripos, which has national responsibility for international crimes and cases requiring cooperation with foreign police authorities.

Norwegian Citizen

• This is a textbook example of a forced disappearance. A Norwegian citizen disappears in one country and reappears in prison in another. For ten days, Vietnamese authorities denied having him, and for nine more days they concealed where he was. Still, no one has been allowed to meet him, says Hessen Jacobsen.

Thuan Duc Nguyen is a Norwegian citizen, pharmacist, and has lived in Norway since 1989. He is resident in Lørenskog with his wife and two children.

For many years, he has worked for democracy, human rights and religious freedom in the country he fled from, as a member of the pro-democracy organization Viet Tan, which works for democracy and human rights in the country. In this work, he has been in contact with several Norwegian elected officials and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Fake Passports"

Lawyer Hessen Jacobsen recounts that Vietnam's security department claims the Norwegian and Australian were stopped by border guards at the Mỹ Quý Tây border post in Tây Ninh province on September 18. And that they allegedly attempted to enter the country illegally.

They claim that Thuan Duc Nguyen had two fake Vietnamese ID cards in addition to his Norwegian passport, says Hessen Jacobsen.

Under Vietnamese criminal law, Thuan Duc Nguyen faces a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years.

The family and Viet Tan reject this account. Vietnamese authorities have presented no evidence for their claims. The two entered Cambodia legally. Their travel route showed no plans to cross the border into Vietnam, and the border post Vietnamese authorities refer to, Mỹ Quý Tây, is over 130 kilometers as the crow flies from Kaoh Andaet, where the two were headed on the morning in question, says the lawyer.

Has Diabetes

Thuan and Hiep entered Cambodia legally and broke no laws there. My brother has worked openly for many years for human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam, with full transparency towards both Norwegian elected officials and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says Thuan Duc Nguyen, Thuan's brother.

Lawyer Hessen Jacobsen states that Thuan Duc Nguyen has diabetes and is dependent on insulin injections every day, in addition to other regular medication.

Not until Wednesday evening, October 7 – nineteen days after his arrest – was the Norwegian embassy informed of where he is being held in custody. The embassy has been promised access to visit him, but they do not have the capacity to do so until next week due to holiday schedules at the embassy.

Concerned

There are good reasons to be concerned about the conditions of detention in Vietnam, and whether fundamental human rights are being respected, such as access to vital medications, says lawyer Maria Hessen Jacobsen.

Vietnamese authorities' explanation of illegal border crossing has been used before, in cases where it was later documented that the person was taken by force. When the same thing now affects a Norwegian and an Australian citizen, Norwegian authorities cannot accept the Vietnamese authorities' version, says lawyer Maria Hessen Jacobsen of Elden Law Firm.