Court rejects appeal, upholds first instance verdict for father in case of girl abused to death

After nearly 2 weeks of trial and deliberation, on the morning of May 10, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendant Nguyen Kim Trung Thai in the case of abusing baby VA (Thai's biological child) to death.

The High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City has rejected the appeal of the lawyer defending the family of baby VA, regarding the need to prosecute Thai for murder.

The panel of judges upheld the first instance verdict against Thai - sentencing him to 8 years in prison for the crimes.torturing othersand concealment of crimes.

Defendant Nguyen Kim Trung Thai at the trial. Photo: Hoang Tho

Previously, on April 28, a representative of the High People's Procuracy in Ho Chi Minh City requested the court to reject the victim's appeal because there was no basis to determine that the defendant Thai was an accomplice to the crime of murder.

According to the representative of the People's Procuracy, the injuries before December 12, 2021 did not cause the death of VA.

"Extracting the camera and phone of defendant Thai on December 12, 2021 shows that defendant Thai did not participate in torturing child VA and prevented defendant Trang from beating the child.representative of the People's Procuracy said.

According to the People's Procuracy, the Criminal Technical Institute, Ho Chi Minh City Police Department has issued a document refusing to conduct forensic examination on December 7, 10, 11, and 12, 2012, therefore, there is no basis to consider the appeal of the victim's representative.

Determining whether Thai was an accomplice of Trang or not, through evidence and questioning of the defendants, shows that the cause of VA's death was acute pulmonary edema and traumatic shock; at the time VA was beaten, causing the fatal injury, Thai was not present.

According to the representative of the People's Procuracy, the defendant Nguyen Vo Quynh Trang's withdrawal of the appeal and the panel of judges' suspension of the appeal trial against the defendant were well-founded and in accordance with the law.

On November 25, 2022, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court of First Instance sentenced defendant Nguyen Vo Quynh Trang to death for murder and 3 years in prison for torturing others, with a combined sentence of death.

Defendant Nguyen Kim Trung Thai received a sentence of 3 years in prison for torturing others, 5 years in prison for concealing a crime, a total sentence of 8 years in prison.

The first instance verdict showed that Trang had a relationship with Thai after the man divorced her. During the time they lived together in the apartment, Thai entrusted his daughter NTVA (8 years old) to Trang to take care of. Later, Trang ordered a rattan cane to discipline Thai’s stepchild. When the cane broke, Trang switched to beating the child with a 90cm long wooden stick and forcing VA to kneel in the dog cage.

On December 7, 2021, Trang forced VA to kneel down, raised both hands high, and then used a whip to beat her. Sitting on the bed, witnessing the incident, Thai cursed and forced VA to kneel down to study. Continuously from December 7 to December 12, 2021, Trang repeatedly beat and tortured VA, but Thai did not stop her, but also joined Trang in beating and torturing A.

In addition, Trang used a dangerous weapon to beat VA's vital areas for nearly 4 hours, causing the child's death. Thai was the person who directly raised and cared for VA. He saw Trang beating and torturing him for many days and hours, but remained indifferent, did not stop or take any action to protect or shelter his child.

On December 22, 2021, after learning that Trang had beaten baby A. to death, Thai logged into the camera management application and deleted all data from the 4 cameras in the apartment to conceal Trang's crime.