Vietnam deports US citizen before Bush, APEC forum

HANOI, Nov 13: Vietnam today deported a US citizen convicted of plotting against the communist-run government, officials said, days before President George W Bush's state visit and an Asia-Pacific summit.

Officials said Nguyen Thuong Cuc, 58, of Orlando, Florida, who was convicted on Friday in a one-day trial along with two other US itizens and four Vietnamese of ''terrorist activities'', was freed early for health reasons.

Her case drew attention in the United States because she and the other US citizens were held for more than a year without charges or trial. Florida Senator Mel Martinez linked the case to the US Congress normalising trade relations with its former enemy Vietnam.

''She has been released by the court for humanitarian reasons,'' Vietnam government spokesman Le Dung told Reuters.

''This meets the interests of the American side but it has nothing to do with PNTR (permanent normal trade relations status).'' The US House of Representatives was expected to pass the trade legislation today, but a Senate vote may not take place until December, congressional aides said in Washington.

Last week, Vietnam's deputy foreign minister Le Cong Phung said Hanoi wanted to be removed from a US religious rights blacklist and for the trade bill to be passed before Bush arrives on Friday. He will meet Vietnam's top leaders and attend the November 18-19 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet APEC foreign ministers on Wednesday and Thursday in Hanoi.

''I think there is something in her hand,'' Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Dung said when asked about the US State Department possibly removing Vietnam from the list known as ''countries of particular concern'' on religious practices.

The United States and the European Union have long pressured the one-party ruled Southeast Asian country to improve its human rights and religious rights record.

Diplomats report progress in recent years, including the release of some religious leaders.

DEPORTATIONS Cuc, who goes by the name of Thuong Nguyen Foshee in the United States, was sentenced in Ho Chi Minh City People's Court to 15 months, including time served and ordered deported within 10 days of finishing her term.

The two other US citizens received the same sentence and are due to be deported in December.

''We are pleased that the Americans will be returning home shortly,'' a spokeswoman for the US Consulate-General in Ho Chi Minh City said. ''We are pleased that there was this resolution.'' The seven people were charged in early November with ''terrorist activities'', including bomb plots, delivering leaflets and jamming radio stations, prosecutors said.

Charges linked the seven to a Vietnamese-born US resident, Nguyen Huu Chanh, who has been suspected in recent years of plotting to bomb Vietnamese embassies. Chanh, a member of a U.S.-based group called ''Government of Free Vietnam'', is detained in South Korea while Hanoi pursues his extradition.

Separately today, New York-based Human Rights Watch said homeless children have been removed from Hanoi streets and mistreated in detention centres before important events such as the APEC summit.

A government spokesman said the report ''was not fair''. He said Vietnam, which was the second country to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ''pays attention to these children and helps reunite them with families and to find work''.

REUTERS