Family tragedy in the case of a wife shooting her husband while waiting for a divorce

In two trials held in July and August at the Hanoi People's Court, defendant Le Ngoc Le was tried for the crime ofKilling, son Truong Anh Son (22 years old) were both present.

Son sat quietly with his father, Mr. Truong Huu Tien, in the row behind the defendant. He attended the trial as a witness to the fight between his father and mother that occurred at the end of December 2014.

Son is the only son of Mr. Tien and Mrs. Le, so his appearance in court was "unwilling". His parents were "not on good terms" before they had to appear in court to confront each other. Both sides accused each other of being the real culprit in the "mysterious gunshot" case.

Ms. Le was accused of shooting her husband twice while waiting for a divorce. The first bullet missed Mr. Tien, and the second did not explode. However, Ms. Le claimed that her husband was the mastermind behind the shooting, and that he had the help of his son.

At the first trial, which opened near the end of July, Son was present and testified that when he heard his father screaming for help, he ran down from upstairs. "My parents were wrestling on the floor," he said, adding that he saw Ms. Le wearing gloves.

In court, he said his parents had a conflict over property when they were preparing for divorce. He had witnessed his parents fighting with each other in their shared home. "They both spoke ill of each other," Son told the jury.

"Do you love your mother?" the judge asked, "No", Son replied. "So do you hate your mother?" the judge asked again, "No", Son said and said he loved both parents.

At the first instance trial, the court returned the file to clarify some contents.

At the second trial that reopened in mid-September (from September 11 to 13), Ms. Le continued to deny the indictment, saying that "even in her thoughts, she did not commit the act of killing her husband."

She accused Mr. Tien and his son of being the ones who used the gun to shoot her. According to the defendant, on December 31, 2014, while she was lying down watching TV, her husband came home from work and called Son: "Take that thing down and do it."

In the light of the bathroom lamp, the defendant clearly saw her son holding the gun her husband bought before they got married. "Mr. Tien once incited my son to lock his mother up, lock the door and threaten to kill her, so I fainted," she explained. According to her, because she fainted, she did not know if Son had shot her or not, but when she woke up, she found herself injured.

The defendant also testified that she heard a conversation between her husband and son, in which Mr. Tien asked: "Is he dead yet?", "He's dead, there's a lot of blood coming out," Son replied. Then, she heard Mr. Tien say: "You shoot one shot at your father, then go to the police and report that your mother shot your father and then committed suicide."

Mr. Tien refuted his wife's testimony. According to him, when he came home from work that day, he saw Ms. Le wearing gloves, pointing a gun at him and pulling the trigger, but missed. He rushed in to fight with his wife and called for help from his son. "She used a hammer to hit me in the head 4-5 times," he accused, and mentioned that the local government had decided to administratively punish Ms. Le for violating another person's body.

As the victim, Mr. Tien said that Ms. Le's actions were premeditated. According to him, she had stopped selling early that day to stay home and prepare to commit the crime. "When I heard the gunshots, I was startled so I called my son down," he explained and requested that the defendant's actions be strictly punished.

Listening to his parents testify in court, Son sat silently, his face sad.

After three days of trial, the first instance trial ended with the court finding that there was sufficient evidence to charge Ms. Le with shooting Mr. Tien and sentencing the defendant to seven years in prison for murder.

After hearing the verdict, Mr. Tien and his son left the court, while Mrs. Le lingered in the hallway of the courtroom.

Viet Dung