EXTRADITION CASE
Court refuses Hanoi's request, releases Ly Tong
Vietnamese-American dissident Ly Tong talks to reporters at the Appeal Court yesterday.
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Appeal court sees action by dissident as a political act and not criminal
The Appeals Court yesterday freed Vietna-mese-American dissident Ly Tong after denying a Hanoi request to try him for air dropping anticommunist leaflets over Ho Chi Minh City seven years ago. "The dumping of leaflets to call for a people's uprising against the Vietnamese government was deemed a political act, not a normal crime," judge Wissarut Sirisingh said in reading the verdict. The Extradition Law of 1929 prohibits deporting people accused of political crimes to face punishment in other countries, he said. Tong had spent seven years in jail for many crimes including taking an aircraft in and out of the Kingdom without permission and for custody during his extradition trial. Tong was arrested in November 2000 after hijacking a plane to fly over Vietnam and making a forced landing at U-Tapao Naval Air Base on his return. The Appeals Court overturned the Criminal Court's decision early last September to grant Vietnam's request of December 2004 to have Tong sent back so he could be prosecuted under its penal code for violating its air space and endangering its national security. However, Tong's stunt would neither affect Vietnamese sovereignty nor cause any change in its territorial boundaries, the judge said. "It is believed that the Vietna-mese government wanted the defendant in connection with a political crime, not a normal crime," he said. Tong praised the ruling. "I am happy, not only for my freedom, but also for Thai justice," he said. "You can trust this government and you can trust justice here." Tong, a naturalised US citizen, was a fighter pilot in South Vietnam until Saigon fell in 1975. His anticommunist activities began in 1992 when he forced a Vietnam Airline airliner to fly over Ho Chi Minh City so he could drop leaflets calling for an uprising against the government in Hanoi. He parachuted from the plane and was arrested and jailed for 20 years. He gained his freedom under an amnesty in 1998. In January 2000, he flew to Cuba to drop anticommunist leaflets over Havana before taking off from Hua Hin Airport to dump flyers over Ho Chi Minh City in November that year. Tong said he would return to the US and continue his struggle to serve his motherland Vietnam. "There are plenty of ways to fight. I will use peaceful means and non-violence to serve my country," he said before leaving for the Immigration Bureau to prepare his travel documents.
Supalak Ganjanakhundee The Nation
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