Brief taste of freedom for Ly Tong
High-profile Vietnamese dissident Ly Tong got a brief taste of freedom yesterday after the completion of his jail term for hijacking a plane from Hua Hin to dump leaflets over Ho Chi Minh City five years ago.
Tong was technically free for 10 minutes before being taken into detention pending his extradition trial to Vietnam over a charge of air-space violation. He stayed overnight at the Crime Suppression Bureau last night before a testimony in the Criminal Court today. Tong, an American citizen, was jailed for forcing pilot Thira Soukying, who had been flying with him ostensibly as a flight instructor, to let him take control of a twin-engine aircraft in November 2000. The former jet pilot then flew the plane over Ho Chi Minh City to drop anti-communist leaflets. He was arrested after a forced landing in U-Tapao on his return trip. Speaking to The Nation after his release yesterday, Tong said he had asked members of the US Congress in Washington to help put pressure on the Thai government to allow him back to the United States. He claimed the Congressmen had already begun a process to help him and would summon a key Thai witness to testify in the Congress to prove he was innocent. He said the witness is a translator who had worked for him and knew he had not hijacked the plane but had in fact hired Thira, paying him $15,000 [Bt572,000], to fly him to Ho Chi Minh City. "I'm innocent, they made up the story and fabricated the evidence to charge me with hijacking," he said. Tong added the Congress would take one or two months to mount pressure and launch a legal process to help him. He claimed he has many supporters in the US who will organise demonstrations to put pressure on Washington. "If the US government and the Congress don't do anything, I will surrender my US citizenship and will voluntarily go to Vietnam," he said. "I don't want to stay in a Thai prison for another five or six years. By then I'll be too old to do anything." The 1929 Thai Extradition Law prohibits the extradition of people convicted of political crimes in a foreign country. As a result Hanoi made an official request in December to have Ly Tong convicted of air-space violation as a normal crime, not a political one. Tong was a former jet pilot in South Vietnam.
Supalak Ganjanakhundee The Nation
|
