The People’s Supreme Court in HCM City
yesterday, Nov 25, upheld the 23-year jail sentence given to a couple from
southernmost Ca Mau Province for brutally torturing their teenaged worker.

The People’s Supreme Court in HCM City yesterday upheld the 23-year jail sentence given to Huynh Thanh Giang and his wife Ma Ngoc Thom. (Photo: PLTPHCM)

In June,
the Ca Mau People’s Court had handed down the sentence to shrimp-farm owner
Huynh Thanh Giang and his wife Ma Ngoc Thom for their barbarity towards Nguyen
Hao Anh, 14.

Their
two hired workers, Luu Van Khanh, 17, and Lam Ly Quynh, 19, both received an
18-month sentence.

Giang,
Thom, and Quynh filed an appeal in the People’s Supreme Court saying the
sentence was too harsh.

At the
appeal, Thom, incessantly complaining she was tired, denied the charges saying
the boy had burnt himself in an accident.

She and
her husband also wanted the court to order fresh forensic tests, claiming Anh
had had several injuries on his body when he first came to work on their farm.

Anh, the
son of a poor divorced couple, said he did not want the court to reduce his
former employers’ sentence but hoped the court will show sympathy to Quynh.
However, Judge Pham Hung Viet also confirmed Quynh’s sentence.

Anh’s
mother Pham Thi Thoa had sent him to work on the shrimp farm in Phu Hiep village
for a monthly salary of VND500,000 (US$25) in October 2008.

His job
was to break open snail shells to feed the shrimp, do housework, and look after
the couple’s child.

The two
tortured him because he was “lazy.”

Forensic
tests found the boy had suffered injuries on two-thirds of his body.

The
local police said the couple had confessed to beating him, throwing boiling
water and chemicals on him, burning him with an electric iron, breaking five
teeth with pliers, and forcing him to drink his own urine.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News