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A Thai appeal court overturned Tuesday the extradition of a former South Vietnamese pilot to Vietnam for distributing anti-Vietnamese government leaflets seven years ago.
Vietnam wanted to try Ly Tong, 59, a US citizen of Vietnamese origin, for invading Vietnam's airspace in a plane hijacked from Thailand and dropping thousands of anti-communist leaflets over Hanoi during a visit by the then US President Bill Clinton.
The head judge of Bangkok’s Criminal Court, Wisarut Sirisingh, said the leaflet incident was “a political act” and "what he did caused no harm to the territorial security of Vietnam." Another court had ruled last September that Tong's acts were a “security related crime” and allowed the extradition. Under its 1929 Extradition Law, Thailand does not extradite people on political grounds. After flying back to Thailand, Tong was arrested and sentenced to over seven years in jail in 2003 for hijacking and violating aviation and immigration laws. He has now served his reduced term and can walk out a free man. A source said the appeal verdict was final. Tong, wearing a prison dark brown shirt and shorts, and shackles round his ankles, smiled when the verdict was passed. His lawyer said he was completing procedures to take Tong back to the US. Vietnam Indignant Le Dung, the Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman, condemned the verdict as “unfair, totally in contradiction to Thai, Vietnamese, and international laws and not in line with the good relations between the two countries”. Tong had committed “acts which seriously violated Vietnamese sovereignty, security, and laws and international conventions. The nature of his acts is terrorism which needs to be punished.” “[The verdict] goes against common efforts to prevent crimes and terrorism in the region and the world.” In December 2004 the Vietnamese government made an extradition request to Thailand, charging Tong with slandering the Hanoi government and violating Vietnamese territory. Earlier, in 1992 Tong had forced a Vietnam Airlines aircraft to fly over Ho Chi Minh City and dropped similar leaflets against the Vietnamese government. He later parachuted out, was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in jail, but freed under an amnesty in 1998. After returning to the US, he hired a plane to fly over Cuba and threw pamphlets protesting against the Cuban government.
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