Former lawyer Le Cong Dinh being escorted into court in Ho Chi Minh City

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court handed down jail terms of between five and 16 years imprisonment to four people found guilty of attempting to overthrow the government on Wednesday.

Former lawyer Le Cong Dinh was sentenced to five years, Nguyen Tien Trung to seven years and Le Thang Long to five years on the same charge. The three will also be under three years of surveillance after serving the jail terms.

Under surveillance, the convicts will not be allowed to travel out of certain areas or hold certain jobs. They will also have to report regularly to authorities.

Earlier, the court, presided over by Judge Nguyen Duc Sau, concluded that the defendants’ acts had been serious and had worked to weaken both national security and sovereignty to the detriment of the Vietnamese people.

According to Vietnam’s Penal Code, attempting to overthrow the government carries a sentence of between 12 years and death.

However, the defendants were handed lenient sentences because they had been enticed to commit the crimes by hostile forces and they had been honest to a certain degree during the investigation, according to statements issued by the court. The defendants were repentant and had good family records, said the statements.

At the one-day trial’s outset, the court had rejected Thuc’s request for a new board of judges.

However, Long’s request to refuse the services of defense lawyer Nguyen Minh Tam, whom he had previously hired himself, was accepted after Long told the court that Tam had expressed his belief that his client was guilty. Long subsequently defended himself.

Former lawyer Dinh defended himself at the court, while Trieu Quoc Manh acted as Thuc’s defense lawyer and attorney Doan Thai Duyen Hai defended Trung.

According to the indictment, Thuc had created in 2005 what he called the “Chan Research Group,” which had subsequently plotted to begin bringing down the Vietnamese government in late 2010.

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 2009, ran a website and three blogs that disseminated distorted information about the Vietnamese government and the ruling Communist 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 Le Cong Dinh in 2008. 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 2009, prosecutors said.

Since then Thuc and Dinh, who were arrested in June 2009, 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 the 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 2009 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 Le Nga