Vietnam’s state television broadcast footage on Thursday of a former oil executive saying he had voluntarily returned home to face justice for corruption, after Germany said he was abducted in Berlin by the communist state and taken back by force.
The German foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Vietnam had abducted Trinh Xuan Thanh (51), a former official at state oil company PetroVietnam, who is accused of financial mismanagement that caused losses of about €126 million.
In response, Berlin ordered a Vietnamese intelligence officer to leave Germany within 48 hours and demanded that Thanh be allowed to return to claim asylum. Germany said it was considering other measures against Vietnam.
Thanh looked tired as he appeared on state television on Thursday, dressed in a polo shirt and with his hair tousled.
It was unclear if he was speaking freely.
“I wasn’t thinking maturely and decided to hide and during that time I realised I need to return to face the truth and . . . admit my faults and apologise,” Thanh said in the prime-time bulletin on Vietnam Television.
“I decided out of fear to hide in Germany, where I lived a precarious and anxious life,” television quoted Thanh as saying in a signed confession dated July 31st. “I returned to Vietnam and presented myself to the investigative authority.”
Vietnamese police said he had turned himself in on Monday after a 10-month international manhunt.
However, his lawyer ruled out that version of events.
“He would never have done that. He was scared of going back and what the consequences might be,” Thanh’s asylum lawyer in Germany, Victor Pfaff, told Reuters.
Earlier, Vietnam’s foreign ministry expressed regret over a statement from Germany accusing Vietnam of kidnapping Thanh.
“Vietnam very much respects and wants to develop the strategic partnership relation between Vietnam and Germany,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters in Hanoi.
Germany’s foreign ministry said it was considering further action on the “unprecedented . . . breach of German and international law”.
It was unclear if the Vietnamese intelligence officer had left Germany yet.
It was not immediately clear whether Thanh has legal representation in Vietnam. Closed-door trials are common in the one-party state, which keeps a tight clamp on dissent.
A recent anti-corruption drive and the biggest roundup of dissidents in years follow a shift within the party leadership last year towards security-minded conservatives.
Background
Thanh was an executive at PetroVietnam Construction JSC, part of PetroVietnam.
He came to public attention in mid-2016 when he was found to have a luxury Lexus car with a government licence plate, causing an outcry in a country where officials are expected to live modestly.
Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong subsequently ordered an investigation into Thanh’s career and how he had been promoted despite the alleged losses at PetroVietnam Construction.
Thanh took sick leave last year and went abroad, vanishing from the public eye until now.
Germany’s Süeddeutsche newspaper reported that he had requested asylum after his arrival in Germany.
His asylum application had not been completed and was still being processed, the foreign ministry in Berlin said on Thursday.
The German foreign ministry said Vietnamese officials had requested Thanh’s extradition on the margins of last month’s G20 summit, when prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Some residents in Hanoi said they could not access social network platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, late on Wednesday and early on Thursday, but they said the sites were now back to normal.
It was not immediately clear why the social network platforms were inaccessible and whether this was in relation to Germany’s accusations.
It is not unusual for social media to be temporarily closed in Vietnam, where authorities often censor news.
Nguyen Quang A, a retired computer scientist and vocal critic of the government, said on his Facebook page that someone had tried unsuccessfully to hack his account 16 times early on Thursday.
He also said the alleged kidnapping was “stupid” and would have severe diplomatic consequences.
Other activists have also publicly criticised the government over the kidnapping allegations.
Reuters