Committed a serious crime because he heard his co-workers badmouthing his mother.

On August 5, the Hanoi People's Court of First Instance sentenced defendant Pham Van Dung (born in 1989, residing in Nhi Khe commune, Thuong Tin district, Hanoi city) to 13 years in prison for murder (Article 123 of the 2015 Penal Code). The victim was Hoang Quang Manh (born in 1973, residing in Dao Xa commune, Thanh Thuy district, Phu Tho province).

According to the first instance verdict, Dung and Mr. Manh were both workers at Minh Hien Electric Cable Company Limited, located in Quat Dong Industrial Park (Thuong Tin District). On October 4, 2019, while working at the company, Dung was informed by a male colleague that Mr. Manh said that Dung's mother was having an affair. Hearing this, Dung was very upset and had the idea of ​​going to find Mr. Manh to beat him up in revenge.

Early that afternoon, while in the workshop, Dung saw Manh walking in from outside and smiling at him. Feeling angry because he heard Manh badmouthing his mother, Dung bent down to pick up a long iron bar and hit Manh on the head. Being attacked unexpectedly, Manh was stunned and fell to the floor. Knowing that Manh was unable to resist, Dung continued to hit Manh repeatedly on the head with the long iron bar.

Dung's extremely dangerous behavior only stopped when some other colleagues in the company intervened and pushed Dung out of the factory. Mr. Manh was seriously injured, but because he was taken to the emergency room in time, his life was not in danger. The results of the examination determined that Mr. Manh suffered 47% health damage.

At the trial, the defendant Dung admitted to the crime as stated in the indictment. Explaining his particularly dangerous behavior towards Mr. Manh, the defendant stated that he was upset because Mr. Manh spoke ill of his mother, so at that time he could not control himself and acted that way.

According to the defendant's testimony, this was not the first time Dung was told by others that Manh had spoken ill of his family, so the defendant took this to heart and committed the crime when he was very upset. On the contrary, Manh affirmed in court that he had not spoken ill of the defendant or his family.

During the investigation, Mr. Manh submitted a petition to the investigating agency requesting that Dung be exempted from criminal prosecution. At the trial, Mr. Manh continued to request the panel of judges to reduce the sentence for the defendant because of his difficult family circumstances and the dangerous actions he committed were impulsive.

In his final statement, the defendant apologized to the victim and asked the panel of judges to consider and reduce his sentence so that he could return home to take care of his children and relatives. After deliberating, the panel of judges applied mitigating circumstances for the defendant such as: good character, honest confession, difficult family circumstances, committing the crime due to psychological stress, and the victim's request for a reduced sentence. From there, the panel of judges decided to sentence the defendant to the above sentence.