Sentenced defendant Phan Van Binh to 14 years in prison for "Crime of activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government"

On January 22, along with the accusations of the People's Procuracy of Khanh Hoa province with a proposed sentence of 13-14 years in prison for the defendant, the Trial Panel determined that Phan Van Binh's actions were sufficient to constitute a crime of a particularly serious nature, occurring over a long period of time, aiming to divide the great national unity bloc, infringing on national security, going against national interests, negatively affecting social order and security, and requiring isolation from society for a period of time for education. The Trial Panel sentenced defendant Phan Van Binh to 14 years in prison.

According to the indictment of the People's Procuracy of Khanh Hoa province, Phan Van Binh regularly used his mobile phone to connect to the Internet and access the YouTube application to watch Dao Minh Quan's introductory videos about the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam".

Since around November 2015, Phan Van Binh has used the Facebook application with the account name "An Phan" to make friends with the account "Kelly Trieu" ("Kelly Trieu Thanh Hoa", the account owner is a woman living in California, USA). Through the introduction of "Kelly Trieu", Binh learned about the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam" with Dao Minh Quan as "Prime Minister", with the motto and purpose of overthrowing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to build the "Third Republic" with Dao Minh Quan as President; at the same time, they were enticed to provide salaries, housing, and care for the members of this organization so that they could have a prosperous life.

From there, Phan Van Binh voluntarily wrote an application to join the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam" under the guidance of "Kelly Trieu Thanh Hoa". Next, Binh sent a photo of the application to join the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam" and received a message from "Kelly Trieu Thanh Hoa" on Facebook informing him that "Prime Minister" Dao Minh Quan had accepted Binh's application to join the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam", and at the same time appointed Phan Van Binh as Captain, Commander of the Volunteer Security Group, with the task of mobilizing and attracting people in Vietnam to join the organization and support "Prime Minister" Dao Minh Quan.

During the investigation, Phan Van Binh admitted to carrying out the tasks and instructions of Dao Minh Quan, according to which Binh used his phone to open videos of Dao Minh Quan and "Kelly Trieu Thanh Hoa" to introduce the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam" to people living near his residence in Cam Hiep Bac commune, Cam Lam district, Khanh Hoa province for them to listen and know, in order to propagate, mobilize, persuade and entice them to join the organization and support Dao Minh Quan.

In addition, Phan Van Binh also deceived Phan Thi Hanh (Binh's biological daughter) into writing an application to join the organization "Provisional National Government of Vietnam". Upon checking Phan Van Binh's Facebook account named "An Phan", the authorities also discovered that the defendant posted many articles with content defaming the image of President Ho Chi Minh, Party and State leaders; propagating and distorting the history, Party guidelines, State laws and policies... with the aim of overthrowing the people's government and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.