Russians acquitted in murder of Vietnamese student Tuan

 

VNS - 19-10-2006

SAINT PETERSBURG — The accused murderers of a 20 year-old Vietnamese student in St. Petersburg were acquitted in the city’s courts on Tuesday, but prosecutors said they would lodge an appeal.

Vu Anh Tuan, a freshman at St. Petersburg State Technological University, was attacked in October 2004 by a group of youths on the street as he walked home. One of the assailants stabbed Tuan with a knife, wounding him fatally.

The lawyer of the victim’s family, Khalid Abderranman Fellehousse, expressed his disappointment and commented that the reality was that Russia was not yet "ripe" for the judging by a jury in cases of racial hate crimes like this.

Speaking with the Itar-Tass News Agency, the first deputy chairman of the Duma (lower house) Security Committee, Mikhail Grishankov, said that jury acquitted the accused without justification. The verdict would cause many problems and would be certainly protested by prosecutors, he said.

He commented that there was a dangerous trend in Russia of crimes due to national and religious hatred which could not be countenanced.

Human rights activists in Moscow also warned that the jury verdict to acquit could lead to an increase in the number of crimes against foreigners in Russia.

Galina Kozhevnikova from the Sova Human Rights Centre warned that if the murderers were freed, it would encourage a wave of xenophobia and racial discrimination by skinheads in Russia.

The deputy chairman of the Vietnamese Association in the city, Nguyen Duc Toan, said Vietnamese students in the city who expected justice were extremely disappointed and unhappy with the jury’s verdict.

Toan said the city prosecutor and police were also displeased with the decision. The St. Petersburg Procuracy indicated that it was considering the possibility of appealing to a higher court.

Murder case hearing

Meanwhile, the hearing on the murder of overseas Vietnamese Tran Ngoc Binh started yesterday in Ostrogozhsk City in Voronezh Province, a Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Russia reported.

Binh, 50, was assaulted and beaten by a group of local teenagers in early April, 2006. Binh died a few days after the attack from severe injuries.

The Voronezh procuracy has accused the attackers for having caused fatal injuries resulting in death. Three of the accused were less than 14 years old when they committed the crime and was therefore not indicted.

The procuracy also charged the culprits for acting with a hostile nationalistic motive.

Binh was born in Nghe An Province in Viet Nam. He had a Russian wife and was running a small business in Voronezh Province. Earlier, two murder cases were reported from the same province, believed to have been caused by nationalistic hostility. — VNS

 

 

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