Vietnam dissidents sentenced to death

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 8

Vietnam dissidents sentenced to death

NZPA-Reuter Hong Kong

An army captain and an information officer of the former South Vietnamese Government have been condemned to death by a Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnam News Agency has reported. The agency, monitored in Hong Kong, said they had been convicted at the end of a three-day open trial for being leaders of a secret anti-Government organisation known as the “Front for National Salvation.” It said 18 other defendants in the case of a “counterrevolutionary organisation” had been jailed for between two and 20 years. They included former officers and soldiers and officials of Nguyen Van Thiu’s Government as well as ethnic Chinese described by the agency as “reactionary capitalist.” The agency identified the leader of the group as Vo Van Ni, aged 39, a former army captain. It said the 20 defendants had admitted they had secretly set up the “Front for National Salvation” since late 1975, the year when South Vietnam was taken Over by the communists. Nhi had styled himself chairman,, general, and. Com-mander-in-chief of the front, which had gathered ‘a number of officers and soldiers of the former regime and “reactionaries” hiding in Ho Chi Minh City and some provinces..