American jailed for attempt to overthrow Vietnam government says he was ‘kidnapped’
- Michael Nguyen was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was released after being detained for 27 months
- He was accused of inciting protesters to attack government offices with Molotov cocktails and slingshots, among other activities
A US citizen sentenced last year to 12 years in a Vietnamese jail for “attempting to overthrow the state” spoke of his 27-month detention at a Zoom news conference on Wednesday, after he was released and returned to his home in California last week.
“I was essentially kidnapped, myself and three others, taken off a bus,” Nguyen, the father of four daughters, said of his detention. “No reason was given to me. No credentials were presented to me. I was blindfolded, handcuffed and put into a car by people in civilian clothes.”
He said he was interrogated “for 16 hours at a time for days”.
His trial came nearly a year after his capture, during which time he had no access to a lawyer, Nguyen said. The day before the trial he was provided a public defender “who was given a stack of paper more than 12 inches (30cm) tall”.
“They had written out a statement for me to sign and the public defender’s main job was to get me to sign a statement of words that were not even my own,” Nguyen said.
