A Vietnam court has given sentences of up to nine years to eight former security guards for beating a drug addict to death at a detoxification center in the southern province of Dong Nai in 2013. Nguyen Duc Dung, 42, received the highest sentence, while two of his seven accomplices, Nguyen Minh Phuong, 34, and Nguyen Van Tam, 39, were condemned to six years in jail each at their trial opened by the provincial People’s Court on Wednesday. Tam was the head of the center’s security guard office, the court said. The other five defendants were sentenced to two to five years in prison. According to the indictment, at 1:30 pm on October 31, 2013, Hoang Van Van, a drug addict under detoxification at the Xuan Phu Rehabilitation Center, discussed with two other addicts a plan to attack the center’s staffers to escape. Their attempt later failed and they were arrested. Van was handcuffed and brutalized by the eight above guards, so he got down on his knees and begged them for quarter, but they still struck him with an electric baton and cudgels. The cruel beating caused multiple injuries, including lung contusions, to Van, who later succumbed to his wounds and died. As chief guard, Tam did not prevent the assault but encouraged his staff to beat the victim to death, the court said.

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