The High-level People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on June 4 began hearing an appeal on a terrorism plot targeting Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

Nguyen Duc Sinh (in caro shirt) was given a 10-year sentence

After the first-instance trial of the city’s People’s Court on December 27, 2017, fourteen out of the 16 defendants appealed.

The court sentenced Dang Hoang Thien, born in 1992, residing in HCM City, to 16 years in prison for his main role in making and planting petrol bombs at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM City on April 22, 2017, and his involvement in setting fire to the warehouse of Bien Hoa city police in the southern province of Dong Nai on April 8, 2017.

The instigator of the April 8 arson attack on Bien Hoa police’s warehouse, Nguyen Duc Sinh (born in 1985 in Quang Ngai), was given a 10-year sentence. 

At the appeal trial, both Thien and Sinh admitted their behaviours. Thien appealed the court to reduce the penalty.

According to the first-instance verdict, the defendants had been enticed by reactionary elements abroad to engage in activities against the administration and the people, such as spreading false and distorted information on social networks, participating in demonstrations, recruiting members for reactionary organisations and making weapons. 

They were given imprisonment sentences ranging from five to 16 years against 15 involved defendants on the charge of conducting terrorism against the people’s administration. Those who involved in burning down the police warehouse containing traffic-violation motorbikes were ordered to pay 1.2 billion VND in compensation to Bien Hoa police.

Le Thi Thu Phuong, born in 1996, Thien’s girlfriend, received one year and six months suspended sentence for not denouncing the crime with three years’ probation. She did not appeal.

The appeal court will run until June 5.-VNA