The indictment said that Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, former general director of the HCMC-based One Connection Internet (OCI) Joint Stock Company, had created in 2005 what he called the “Chan Research Group”, which had subsequently plotted to begin bringing down the Vietnamese government late next year.

Prosecutors said Thuc had hoped to use the global economic crisis as a springboard from which to weaken the government.

He wanted to totally remove the leadership of the Vietnam Communist Party by 2020, according to the indictment.

Thuc, who was arrested in May, ran a website and three blogs that disseminated distorted information about the Vietnamese government and the ruling party, said the indictment. It also said the sites had enticed others to join him in his cause.

Four OCI staffers had joined Thuc’s group, including Le Thang Long, who later split from the group to create his own subversive website, according to the indictment.

An investigation by the Ministry of Public Security also found that Thuc had joined the US-based Dang Dan Chu Vietnam (Vietnam Democratic Party) along with arrested dissident lawyer Le Cong Dinh last year. The group had been established in 2006 and the two had been introduced to its members by Nguyen Tien Trung, who was arrested in July, prosecutors said.

Since then Thuc and Dinh, who were arrested in June, together with Nguyen Sy Binh, leader of the subversive party, had disseminated distorted information about Vietnam’s government through the blogosphere.

They also made plans to depose the current government and had planned a new government, the indictment said.

Dinh, the former deputy head of Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, had also attended a training course on government overthrow held by another subversive organization, Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform), in March in Pattaya, Thailand.

After being investigated for spreading propaganda against the state, the four were then charged with attempting to overthrow the government.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff