A defendant in northern Dien Bien province was sentenced on September 26 to three years’ imprisonment and three years of probation after serving his jail term for “conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

The sentence for Giang A Chu was pursuant to Point C, Clause 1, Article 88 of the Criminal Code, the provincial People’s Court said.

The verdict of the Dien Bien People’s Procuracy said that in May 2010, Chu, born in 1989, joined a reactionary organisation led by Trang A Cho with the aim of setting up a “Mong Kingdom”.

Chu kept a document compiled by Cho with contents against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

After legal proceedings were started against him on February 20, 2012, Chu fled away and on May 23, 2013, he brought his family to China, where he was arrested and handed back to Vietnam.-VNA