VietNamNet Bridge – In yesterday’s appeal hearing, the Supreme People’s Court upheld the life sentence handed down to Tran Thuy Lieu by Long An Province People’s Court in March 2012 for killing her husband last year.

Wife torched reporter over love affair and money
Vocal journalist burnt by stranger dies

The 41-year-old woman was sentenced to life by the provincial court for burning her husband, Le Hoang Hung, who had been a journalist with the Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, to death in January 2011.

Lieu appealed the verdict for a lighter sentence, claiming she did not want to kill him but only burned him as a “warning.” She added that the court should consider the fact that her children are still young.

Lieu told the Supreme People’s Court that Hung frequently beat her over her gambling and debts and her extramarital affair with Nguyen Van Tam, former head of the province’s Market Management Team No. 5. Tam was dismissed last August for gambling in Cambodia and for the affair with Lieu.

The Supreme Court turned down her appeal. It also rejected the appeal by Hung’s mother who insisted that someone else is behind the murder. So far, there has not been concrete evidence that a second person is involved in the crime.

Hung’s mother and her lawyer had asked the police to look at the role Tam - the former official - may have played in the case, since Tam and Lieu were secret lovers and had exchanged phone calls and text messages before, during and after the murder.

However, the police have not filed any charges against Tam and concluded that Lieu had acted alone.

At the appeal trial, the court reiterated that that Lieu was the sole culprit in the murder and rejected the allegation that Tam might have abetted in the killing.

As previously reported, Lieu handed herself in to police in February 2011, confessing that she had used petrol to burn Hung when he was sleeping in his bed in their house in Tan An Town, Long An Province on January 19, 2011.

Hung died 10 days later at the age of 51.

The case attracted huge public attention due to the fact that Hung was a journalist reporting on crimes and corruption.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre