The carpenter is not afraid of prison food.

Pham Van Tuyen stood before the witness stand, seemingly no longer unfamiliar with the court scene. In the audience, Tuyen's wife and son also caught a bus from Nam Dinh to attend the trial.

The thin woman, her face stiff, fidgeted as she looked up at her husband. She was supposed to marry him to depend on each other, but her husband had been imprisoned twice. Not only did she not have any support, she also had to work hard to support her four children and raise money to compensate for her husband’s crimes. This was the third time her husband had been brought to trial.

Pham Van Tuyen used to be a carpenter, but instead of improving his craft, he quickly got involved in drugs. In 2002, Tuyen was arrested by Tuong Duong District Police for illegal possession of drugs and was sentenced to 26 months in prison. At the end of 2013, Tuyen finished serving his prison sentence. After returning to his hometown and settling down for a while, Pham Van Tuyen was again imprisoned for causing the death of a local. This time, Tuyen was sentenced to 8 years in prison by the People's Court of Nam Dinh Province and ordered to compensate the victim's family 46 million VND. Pham Van Tuyen finished serving his prison sentence on August 30, 2013.

Defendant Pham Van Tuyen. Photo: Nhu Binh

After being released from prison, Tuyen still could not give up drugs, even when his four children were growing up. After saving 19 million VND, on November 16, 2017, Pham Van Tuyen took a bus from Nam Dinh to Tuong Duong to buy drugs for later use. After buying nearly 1 brick of heroin (weighing 36.4g), at about 1:00 a.m. on November 17, 2017, Tuyen took a motorbike taxi from Dua village (Luong Minh commune, Tuong Duong) to Highway 7 to go downstream. When he arrived at Xieng Huong village, Xa Luong commune, Tuyen was discovered and arrested by Tuong Duong district police.

At the trial, Pham Van Tuyen admitted his crime, expressed remorse and hoped to receive leniency from the law.

The representative of the provincial People's Procuracy holding the right to prosecute at the trial stated that, up to now, Pham Van Tuyen's criminal record for the 8-year prison sentence for "Murder" has not been cleared because he has not completed compensation for the victim according to the verdict of the People's Court of Nam Dinh province, so the defendant's criminal act is a case of dangerous recidivism.

Pham Van Tuyen said that while the defendant was serving his murder sentence, his family had fully compensated the victim. "After the compensation was completed, the defendant was granted amnesty and early release from prison," Tuyen said. Tuyen turned down, seemingly asking his wife. The wife frantically rummaged through her small, old bag but could not find what she was looking for. She hurriedly ran outside, dialed someone on the phone, but then returned to the courtroom disappointed because she did not know where the paper proving that her husband had fully compensated the victim had gone.

Because the defendant and his family could not provide any records or documents showing that they had completed compensation for the victim, and the records did not show this, according to the law, Pham Van Tuyen's criminal record has not yet been cleared. The panel of judges determined that the opinion of the representative of the Provincial People's Procuracy at the trial that the defendant Pham Van Tuyen committed a crime in a case of dangerous recidivism was well-founded.

Considering the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the People's Court sentenced Pham Van Tuyen to 11 years in prison for "Illegal possession of narcotics".

According to the representative of the Provincial People's Procuracy, if there is sufficient evidence to prove that the victim in the previous case has been fully compensated and his criminal record has been cleared, the circumstance of "committing a crime in a dangerous recidivism case" of Pham Van Tuyen will be considered in the appeal hearing if the defendant files an appeal.

Hearing that, Tuyen's wife's face seemed to relax because she had 15 days to shorten her husband's release date, even though she wasn't sure if the man "used" to eating prison food would have enough courage to stand up after falling 3 times.