The provincial Lam Dong People’s Court on April 20 handed down 3 to 5-year sentences to four convicted of “fleeing abroad to sabotage the people’s government” under Article 91 of the Penal Code.

The four defendants, all from the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, are accomplices of exile reactionaries Nguyen Cong Bang and Trinh Thi Ngoc Anh.

Among them, Duong Au, 53, received the longest sentence of five years in prison, while Phung Quang Quyen, 54, received four years and Truong Van Kim, 59, and Truong Thi Tam, 47, three years each.

They will also be put on probation for between three and five years after their release.

At the first-instance trial, all the defendants confessed their guilt, showed repentance, and threw themselves on the mercy of the State.

According to the Supreme People’s Procuracy, this is a serious case involving the violation of national security. Investigative records show that Nguyen Cong Bang and Trinh Thi Ngoc Anh were formerly key members of a terrorist organisation called “The Government of Free Vietnam” headed by Nguyen Huu Chanh. They then set up a reactionary organisation called “The People’s Populist Party”.

In late July, 2009, Bang and Anh, while living overseas, instigated Duong Au and his accomplices to act against the people’s administration in Lam Dong and develop forces to conduct anti-State activities.

They transferred money to Duong Au to help a number of elements flee to Cambodia and asked them to return to Vietnam to incite unrest and sabotage the State by distorting and slandering the local authorities’ settlement of complaints and protesting the State’s policies, including a bauxite exploitation project in the Central Highlands, and its stance on sovereignty over islands and territorial waters.

According to investigations by the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Department, Bang and his group have recently attempted to use websites to unite overseas reactionary organisations and hostile domestic elements to perform anti-State activities.

They intended to exploit people’s complaints and workers’ strikes to instigate and organise anti-State activities, and bring a number of extremists overseas for training before sending them back to Vietnam to operate.

However, all these schemes were detected and crushed by relevant agencies with the help of the people before they had a chance to be put into action./.