The sentence for the man who slashed the police officer is upheld.

On June 18, Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a criminal appeal trial due to an appeal for a reduced sentence by Ho Duc Tuyen (born 1957), residing in Chau Binh commune, Quy Chau.

According to the indictment, at the end of 2014, Mr. Tuyen leased 6,000 square meters of land to a business to use as a site for dumping materials and machinery for the Ban Mong irrigation project. The land rental price was 183 million VND.

Defendant Ho Duc Tuyen at trial. Photo: Nhu Binh

By August 2017, this company had completed the work and organized to dismantle the camp and return the site to Mr. Tuyen. Because the company still owed 10 million VND (outside the contract) and had not paid, they did not allow the camp to be dismantled and the equipment and machinery to be removed from the area.

After many unsuccessful attempts to persuade and mobilize, at around 8am on December 18, 2017, the Chau Binh Commune working group came to Mr. Tuyen's house to ensure security and order for the enterprise to dismantle the camp. Mr. Tuyen did not allow the workers to dismantle the camp and take away the equipment and machinery, so when Mr. Quyen came to persuade him, he was pushed by this man and slashed once in the chest with a knife by the commune police officer.

The results of the injury assessment showed that Mr. Quyen suffered 10% health damage, but Mr. Ho Duc Tuyen's act of using a weapon to endanger someone performing his duties was enough to constitute the crime of "Intentionally causing injury".

In February 2018, the People's Court of Quy Chau district sentenced Ho Duc Tuyen to 18 months in prison for the above crime, forcing the defendant to compensate the victim 20 million VND.

At the trial, the defendant could not present any new mitigating circumstances, so the appellate panel rejected the appeal and upheld the first instance judgment.