Young man wrongly imprisoned for more than 1000 days received apology and compensation of nearly 300 million VND from provincial court

Six months after the lower court's ruling requiring compensation for the wrongfully imprisoned youth, the court publicly apologized to Mr. Nguyen.

On June 10, Deputy Chief Justice of the People's Court of Ca Mau Province Tran Trong Huu and his delegation went to Hamlet 5, Cai Doi Vam Town (Phu Tan District) to apologize to Mr. Tran Hong Nguyen. Three years ago, this 31-year-old man was sentenced to 13 years in prison by the People's Court of Ca Mau Province for the crime of child rape.

According to the case file, on the evening of July 25, 2011, Mr. Nguyen called Ngoc (then 10 years old) and 3 girls of the same age into the room to watch cartoons with his children. A moment later, this young man called his children out, closed the door, tied the children up and then committed lewd acts with Ngoc.

Mr. Nguyen was sentenced to 13 years in prison by the People's Court of Ca Mau province. Photo: Contributor.

Nearly a week later, Ngoc argued with a child near her house and the child told her that she had been abused. The victim's mother heard about it and reported it to the police, and a month later, Nguyen was arrested.

According to the consultation report of Phu Tan district general hospital, Ngoc's hymen was torn, but the examination report of Ca Mau province Forensic Center said otherwise.

In court in April 2013, the defendant pleaded innocent, but the first-instance panel of the People's Court of Ca Mau province found Mr. Nguyen guilty and ordered him to pay the victim 12.5 million VND in compensation. Mr. Nguyen appealed and the Supreme People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City overturned the first-instance judgment for reinvestigation.

According to the appeal court, the witnesses in the case gave many inconsistent testimonies, and the two injury assessment reports of the victim had different conclusions.

Also according to the appeal judgment, the defendant's testimony about his alibi at the time of the incident was that he was playing chess, but the person who played chess with him had not been clearly confronted.

After nearly a year of reinvestigation, on July 15, 2014, Ca Mau Provincial Police requested the People's Procuracy of the same level to suspend the case and release Mr. Nguyen, which was accepted by the prosecution agency.

After that, Mr. Nguyen requested the People's Court of Ca Mau province to compensate him for his wrongful conviction with a total of more than 1 billion VND. After many negotiations, the People's Court of Ca Mau province only agreed to compensate him with 241 million VND.

The wrongly convicted person then brought the case to the Phu Tan District People's Court. The panel of judges here ordered the Ca Mau Provincial People's Court to compensate Mr. Nguyen 296 million VND. This is compensation for mental damage and actual income that Mr. Nguyen lost during the 1,062 days of wrongful imprisonment.

According to Zing.vn