The People's Supreme Court in Hanoi August 9 cleared an 80-year-old man in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh of suspicion who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his cousin over forty years ago.
Tran Van Them, a resident of Yen Phu Commune, Yen Phong District, Bac Ninh, has lived the last 43 years as a convicted murderer after the local judiciary failed to issue any official announcement regarding his innocence following his wrongful conviction.
The Supreme People’s Court led by Deputy Chief Judge Bui Ngoc Hoa said that basing on collected document, related agencies arrived at the conclusion that Them’s case is miscarriage of justice case.
Accordingly, related agencies will be quick to complete formality to publicly offer apology to Them.
Bui Ngoc Hoa said that as per the regulation, related agencies will compensate Them for what he suffered during last 43 years.
Before, Them and his younger cousin, Nguyen Khac Van, went to Tam Duong District in the northern province of Vinh Phuc to sell pipe tobacco. While resting at a local barber shop at night after finishing their work, they were attacked by a robber.
Them and his cousin both resisted, scared the thief away, and got themselves wounded during the process. Van was stabbed with a metal stick and Them suffered a head injury.
Them was holding the weapon when local residents came to the place while Van succumbed to his stab wound on his way to the hospital.
Them was accused of killing his own cousin for money
In 1975, a man confessed to be a murder in Them’s case. The murder was freed after six years in prison yet no related agency cleared Them’s of accusation since then.
