Trịnh Xuân Thanh

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Note: The family name of this Vietnamese name is Trịnh , in western texts the spelling is often simplified Trinh . According to Vietnamese custom, the person should be referred to by their first name Thanh - even in formal situations .

Trịnh Xuân Thanh (born February 13, 1966 in Đông Anh, Hanoi , Vietnam ) is a Vietnamese manager and politician ( KPV ). In 2016 he fled to Germany and applied for political asylum in Berlin because he was facing the death penalty in his home country. On July 23, 2017, he was allegedly forcibly kidnapped by the Vietnamese secret service Tổng cục 2 (TC2) in Berlin's Tiergarten and taken to Vietnam. The trial against him in Hanoi opened on January 8, 2018.

Life

Trịnh Xuân Thanh was a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam . He studied at the Architecture University of Hanoi and graduated there in 1990. From 2011 to 2013, Trinh headed the state-owned company PVC, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil and gas company PetroVietnam . PVC projects large construction projects. He was then scheduled for a number of leadership positions in the government, including the leadership of Hau Giang Province in the southern Mekong Delta . He was elected to the National Assembly in May 2016 . According to his German lawyer Petra Schlagenhauf, Trinh was one of the reformers within the Communist Party of Vietnam and thus to the faction within the state party that was disempowered at the time . Investigations into economic crimes have been launched against him; among other things, he is accused of mismanagement . On September 8, 2016, before his first session as a member of parliament, Trinh was stripped of his mandate. A little later, he was allegedly expelled from the Communist Party for his misconduct, the Voice of Vietnam reported . Above all, his insincerity in dealing with his case would have disqualified him, says the state broadcaster.

He fled to Germany and applied for political asylum. On September 6, 2016, the Vietnamese authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Trinh. Four other former top managers of the PetroVietnam subsidiary PVC had already been arrested by the police at the time. The Vietnamese government accuses him in his capacity as Managing Director 142 million US dollars embezzled to have. In Vietnam, he faces the death penalty by means of lethal injection . As a rule, Germany does not deport people if they face the death penalty in their home country .

Kidnapping in Germany

On July 23, 2017, the TC2 allegedly kidnapped Trịnh Xuân Thanh in Berlin. He and his companion were kidnapped at the zoo . An ambulance with a Czech registration number was involved. Witnesses reported that they only realized through the screams of his companion that it was a kidnapping. In Slovakia in 2019, police critic Ivan Matušík found an invoice for 17,000 euros from the Slovak Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of the Interior in Vietnam for flight costs to Moscow for July 26, 2017. Trịnh Xuân Thanh was taken to Vietnam against his will after the crime and has been there ever since there in state custody. On August 10, 2017, the Federal Public Prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice took over the preliminary proceedings from the Berlin Public Prosecutor's Office. His companion was hospitalized in Hanoi for a broken arm; where she has been since then is unknown.

In July 2018, one of the helpers was sentenced to three years and ten months imprisonment by the Berlin Higher Regional Court for acting as a secret service agent in unity with aiding and abetting deprivation of liberty. The Federal Court of Justice confirmed this judgment in August 2019.

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Destiny in Vietnam

According to the Vietnamese version, Thanh surrendered himself to the Vietnamese police on the day of the kidnapping . Vietnamese state television aired a 1:16 minute film in early August in which Thanh can be seen reading a statement. “I went to Germany because I was scared and didn't think well. On the advice of my family and friends, I returned to Vietnam and faced my interrogators, ”explained the visibly tired Thanh in an unknown location. He hoped for the "grace of the authorities".

Trịnh Xuân Thanh's German lawyer Petra Schlagenhauf said: “Under no circumstances would my client have voluntarily given himself into the hands of the Vietnamese authorities”. Trinh was aware that no legal process would await him in Vietnam , because influential party officials wanted to keep him politically cold. According to the lawyer, the new allegations made against her client after his return to Vietnam were rejected in 2015.

Reactions

"Such a process has the potential to have a massive negative impact on relations between Germany and the People's Republic of Vietnam," said Foreign Office spokesman Martin Schäfer after the kidnapping. In response, the Federal Foreign Office summoned the Vietnamese ambassador to a crisis discussion and declared the TC2 representative at the embassy in Berlin to be a persona non grata . As a result, he had to leave Germany within 48 hours. The federal government demands that the abductee can return to Germany “immediately”.

Foreign Minister Gabriel said that further measures are being discussed, not just the expulsion of those responsible. Everything speaks in favor of the assumption that a person who has applied for asylum in Germany has been kidnapped to Vietnam with the help of the Vietnamese secret service. One could not tolerate this. 

At the beginning of January 2018, the Foreign Office in Berlin asked the Vietnamese ambassador to speak to them after lawyer Schlagenhauf had been refused entry to Vietnam.

An officer of the Vietnamese secret service arrested in Singapore on charges of betrayal of secrets claims to have been responsible for the kidnapping and applied for emigration and political asylum in Germany.

process

The trial of Trịnh Xuân Thanh began on January 8, 2018 in Hanoi. In addition to him, 21 other people, including seven former managers and a former senior member of the Politburo, were charged. With regard to Trịnh Xuân Thanh, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment for mismanagement and embezzlement. The public prosecutor's office had waived the demand for the death penalty. However, in another trial that began on January 24, 2018, he faces the death penalty again.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ha Nguyen: Germany Claims Vietnam Kidnapped Asylum-Seeker Wanted By Hanoi . In: VOA . ( voanews.com [accessed August 6, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Berlin accuses Vietnam of kidnapping an ex-functionary. Retrieved August 8, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c d SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hamburg Germany: kidnapping of a Vietnamese businessman : kidnapped, in the middle of Berlin - SPIEGEL ONLINE - politics. Retrieved August 6, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Federal Government: Gabriel wants to add more in the case of the kidnapped Vietnamese . In: The time . August 4, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed August 5, 2017]).
  5. ↑ The Associated Press: Germany Blasts Vietnam Over 'Kidnap' of Former Oil Executive . In: The New York Times . August 2, 2017, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed August 5, 2017]).
  6. ^ A b Wili Germund: Stalinist smear theater. In Frankfurter Rundschau from 5./6. August, p. 9
  7. ↑ a b Morten Freidel: Long-planned kidnapping: The love trap for Trinh Xuan Thanh. In: faz.de. April 25, 2018, accessed February 29, 2020 .
  8. ↑ In taz from December 1st, 2019
  9. ↑ BT-Drs. 18/13514
  10. ↑ a b Press release No. 15/20 from 3.2.2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Vietnam: Vietnamese secret service allegedly kidnapped asylum seekers . In: The time . August 2, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed August 2, 2017]).
  12. ↑ Anne-Béatrice Clasmann and Christoph Sator: political thriller: Vietnamese secret service kidnapped businessman from Berlin . In: Berliner Zeitung . ( berliner-zeitung.de [accessed on August 2, 2017]).
  13. ↑ Martin Knobbe: Berlin kidnapping case Trinh: Vietnam refuses German lawyer entry. In: Spiegel Online. January 5, 2018, accessed January 5, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Trinh Xuan Thanh: Trial of abducted Vietnamese begins. In: Zeit Online. January 8, 2018, accessed January 9, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Trịnh, Xuân Thanh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese manager and politician (KPV)
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Đông Anh, Hanoi