Police in the southern province of Binh Duong Sunday suspended an officer for allegedly attempting to seduce a woman into sex and selling land to save her husband. The husband later died while in custody from theft suspicion.

 

Nguyen Thanh Phu, investigator of Thuan An Town’s police division, was suspended after Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen, 30, sent complaints to the provincial agencies together with a nine-minute-and-five-second tape that recorded phone calls from Phu.

 

A source told Thanh Nien that 33-year-old Nguyen Cong Nhut was in custody on April 21-25 for an investigation into the loss of tires at Kumho Tire Co. Ltd., where he was working as head of product storage. 

 

The source said Tuyen came to the police station and asked to meet her husband on many occassions, but was refused repeatedly.

 

She once met Phu at the police station’s cafeteria, where they exchanged each other’s numbers and since that meeting Phu kept calling her and seducing her, according to the source.

 

Phu later explained to his agency that those phone calls were only jokes, but Tuyen said Phu kept convincing her to “go to hotel” with him, and that when she refused it, he turned to asking her to sell their land piece to save Nhut, according to the source.

 

Binh Duong’s police said the loss of tires was estimated to cost some VND7 billion (US$340,301) with the involvement of many people from different localities, so they established a special investigation team, including Phu.

 

Local related departments have been assigned to investigate the case.

 

In the meantime, following the previous request for an investigation into the death of Nhut, who was found hanging himself with mobile phone’s battery charger wire from a window in police’s room last Monday, Tuyen now raised more questions about it.

 

According to Tuyen, while Nhut was kept in custody, the family didn’t receive any official announcement.

 

Not to mention that Nhut died at 6 a.m. and at 8:30 a.m. she was at the police station, asking to meet him but she wasn’t informed about his death until 1:30 p.m. the same day.

 

“Why didn’t they inform me then, but wait until afternoon to tell me?” she asked.

 

Also in her complaint, Tuyen questioned injuries on Nhut’s body like bruises on his wrists, hands and feet.

 

Previously Tuyen said that the writing in Nhut’s suicide note which police gave her was different from his.

 

In the four-page note, Nhut said he was responsible for the loss of between 6,000 and 7,000 tires since 2008, which would lead to a jail term of between 15-20 years.

 

According to the note, he did not want to face the sentence and was suffering many diseases, so he killed himself.