The Appeal Court of the Supreme People’s Court heard an appeal filed by defendants convicted in the coercive land reclamation case in Haiphong, upholding the sentences of four out of six defendants.

The defedants at the Appeal Court on July 30

The defendants were charged for violently resisting on-duty officers last year, injuring seven.

The defendants were Doan Van Vuon, 50 years old of the district’s Vinh Quang commune, and his accomplices are Doan Van Quy, 47 (Vuon’s brother), Doan Van Sinh, 56, and Doan Van Ve, 39, Nguyen Thi Thuong, 43 (Vuon’s wife), and Pham Thi Bau, 31 (Quy’s wife).

The court rejected the remission petition of Doan Van Vuon, Doan Van Quy, Nguyen Thi Thuong and Pham Thi Bau, maintaining the judgments handed down during the first trial on April 5, 2013. Both Vuon and Quy were sentenced to five years in prison. Pham Thi Bau was given an 18-month suspended sentence and Nguyen Thi Thuong was given a 15-month suspended sentence.

Sinh and Ve were given reduced sentences. The appeals court sentenced Sinh to 33 months in prison, a 9-month reduction, while Ve was given 19 moths, a 5-month reduction.

During the appeal Vuon asked that the entire case be reviewed, arguing that it was the decision by the Tien Lang District authorities to forcibly revoke the land which caused them to resist.

Meanwhile, Sinh, the oldest defendant expressed his regret for the violations, calling for the court to offer him and other defendants sentence reduction so that they can early return their family.

Doan Van Vuon sentenced five years in prison

In 1993, local authorities allocated Mr. Vuon 21 ha of swampland to develop aquaculture as part of the local government’s plan to reclaim unused land in the district. They gave him an additional 19.3 hectares in 1997 with land use rights that were to expire on October 4, 2007.

On April 7, 2009, the district decided to take back 19.3 ha of land where his use rights had already expired. Vuon sued took his case to the Haiphong City People’s Court and lost, at which point Vuon and his family members set up fences to prevent authorities from entering the area and prepared traps using bullets, gas cans and explosives.

On January 5, 2012, Vuon and his brothers used guns to fight against the authorities who were trying to clear the explosives on the land, injuring seven policemen and soldiers. The violators fled but were later arrested by Haiphong police.