Extradition from South Korea to Vietnam—Chanh Huu Nguyen

Fresh from his victory in South Korea, Chanh Huu Nguyen has “returned to his home in California.”^[1] Mr. Nguyen is a permanent US resident, and he was detained in South Korea for three months while Vietnam attempted to have him extradited “for alleged involvement in failed attempts to bomb its embassies in the Philippines and Thailand and state facilities in Vietnam.”^[2]

Mr. Nguyen “leads the Garden Grove-based Government of Free Vietnam,” and he is “regarded by many as a leader in the effort to overthrow the government of his native country.”^[3] The Government of Free Vietnam was formed in 1995, and it “considers itself Vietnam’s government in exile and aims to overthrow the country’s communist government through nonviolent means.”^[4]

When he was arrested in April, he “was on a 10-day mission for the nonprofit US International Mission to seek donations to build orphanages on Saipan for children forced into sex slavery.”^[5]

The South Korea court officially refused to extradite him because it “recognize[d] him as a political criminal.”^[6] Furthermore, Vietnam is not a signatory to the 1998 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing [hereinafter ICSTB]^[7] To understand this development, it is important to look at the political exception to extradition that is found in most treaties.

In the US-Netherlands Extradition treaty, extradition will not be granted when, “in the view of the Requested State,” the offense for which extradition is requested is of a political character.^[8] Similar provisions are found in the US-Japan extradition treaty, the US-South Korea extradition treaty, the Canada-Sweden extradition treaty, and the Australia-South Africa extradition treaty.

In all these treaties, however, the murder of heads of state or crimes which fall within multilateral conventions, such as terrorism, are exceptions to the exception. In some of the treaties, conspiracy to commit such acts is also an exception to the exception.

There have been some suggestions that South Korea and Vietnam had an extradition treaty in which conspiracy to commit such acts was not an exception to the exception, which means that Mr. Nguyen, being accused of conspiracy, could not be extradited on those grounds. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, Vietnam is not a party to the ICSTB, which meant that it could not request extradition on the grounds found in that Convention.

Vietnam says that it will not give up its attempts to have Mr. Nguyen extradited,^[9] but now that he is back in the United States, it will be difficult for Vietnam to do so. There is no bilateral extradition treaty with the US, and it is not a party to the ICSTB. It will therefore need to find some other way to request the extradition, such as accusing him of hijacking, or drug trafficking, both of which are covered by multilateral conventions of which both the US and Vietnam are parties.

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[1] Vietnam Fails to Extradite Suspect in Failed Bombings, Mercury News, Aug. 4, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Mai Tran, Freed Vietnamese Activist Greeted at Airport by Supporters, LA Times, Aug. 3, 2006.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] David Haldane, O.C.’s Vietnamese Cheer Release of Activist LA Times, Aug. 3, 2006.
[7] South Korean Court Rejects Extradition of Vietnamese Dissident, AFP (via The Nation (Bangkok)), Jul. 27, 2006.
[8] Extradition Treaty, Jun. 24, 1980, U.S.-Neth., art. 4, para. 1. S. Treaty Doc. No. 97-7.
[9] Tran, supra note 3.