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Danang former official jailed for child abuse
  • By Xuan Duy | dtinews.vn | August 24, 2019 01:29 PM
The former deputy director of Danang City People's Procuracy, Nguyen Huu Linh was yesterday sentenced 18 months in jail for sexually abusing children under 16.




Nguyen Huu Linh at the court on August 23


According to a report announced by the court, Nguyen Huu Linh, who is a member of the Danang Bar Association and former deputy director of Danang City People's Procuracy, came to visit his daughter at the Galaxy 9 Apartment Building in Ho Chi Minh City's District 4. On the evening of April 1, a building's security camera caught Linh hugging and kissing a 7-year-old girl in an elevator.


At the closed trial in which the girl's family were absent on Friday, the 62-year-old man admitted his hugging and kissing the girl but denied it means sexually abuse.

Linh's lawyer, Tran Ba Hoc, also claimed that the indictment against his client was groundless and unpersuasive.

"Investigators only based on Linh's hugging and kissing the girl's cheek to issue the charge," Hoc said. "Forensic tests by HCM City Public Security Department could not show whether Linh's left hand touched the girl's body. Therefore the sentence was too much for him."

Linh appealed the sentence.

Head of Ho Chi Minh City People's Procuracy, Duong Ngoc Hai, stressed that Linh's behaviour posed danger to the society and badly affected public order so must be strictly punished.

The case has been receiving huge attention from the public as it occurred just a short time after a young woman was sexually assaulted in an elevator in Hanoi by a man who was then fined only VND200,000 (USD8.70).

Members of public and organisations have called on local authorities to strictly punish the offender this time, because he was a lawyer and former procuracy official.

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