The wife of a man who was found hanging dead in a Binh Duong police station in April 2011 has filed a petition asking for a review of the Supreme People’s Procuracy’s conclusion of the cause of her 33-year-old husband’s death.

>> Policeman seducing suspect’s wife demoted>> Wife demands fresh probe into police station death>> Man voluntarily stays at police office then kills self: police>> Autopsy finds storekeeper committed suicide>> Hanged storekeeper’s wife provides 'sex' tapes>> Video shows police station where man hanged Nguyen Thi Thanh Tuyen has sent her petition to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee and President Truong Tan Sang. In the petition, she said she did not agree with the conclusion that her deceased husband, Nguyen Cong Nhut, died by hanging himself while at the office of Binh Duong Province’s Ben Cat District police for a theft investigation.

According to the conclusion of the investigation agency under the top prosecutor’s office, Nhut died after hanging himself on August 25, 2011, four days after he voluntarily turned himself in to the police office to serve the investigation into the loss of some 6,000 tires at Korean tire maker Kumho, where he was the tire storekeeper. Before his death, Nhut had tipped-off the police, leading to the arrests of 29 suspects in the theft, the agency said in its conclusion. Nhut committed suicide since he had felt regret over his mistakes in the delivery of tires, which facilitated the theft by company employees. He also felt fearful of being sentenced for his wrongdoings, the prosecutor’s office said. The autopsy on Nhut and the examination of the scene showed that he had not suffered from any corporal punishment, the prosecutor’s office cited the test results of the Military Forensic Institute as saying. The Forensic Technical Examination Office under the Defense Ministry also said some letters found at the scene of the death were ‘suicide notes’ written by Nhut himself.

However, Tuyen has been insisting that Nhut did not hang himself and that he had not written the letters. She also believed that her husband did not “voluntarily stay at the police office to cooperate in the investigation.”

Tuyen (C), Nhut's mother, and lawyer Tran Dinh Trien, who does not believe Nhut "voluntarily" stayed in the Ben Cat police station (Photo: Nguoi Lao Dong)

Tuyen’s lawyer, Tran Dinh Trien, has previously said he thinks investigators had forced Nhut to write a confirmation of “voluntary stay.” “Why did the police take away Nhut’s mobile phone while he was ‘cooperating’ with them in the investigation?” Tuyen asked in her petition. Tuyen also asked for clarification of why Major Nguyen Thanh Phu, then an investigator who took part in Nhut’s questioning, knew her phone number so that he could later insist on having sex with her in exchange for his help in releasing Nhut.

As previously reported, after Tuyen reported Phu’s request to police, he was demoted from major to captain in May 2011. 

The demotion came several days after Tuyen sent her petition to the Binh Duong Province police and prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Public Security, the National Assembly Justice Committee, andSupreme People’s Procuracy, requesting Nhut's death to be clarified. In the above-mentioned conclusion, the Procuracy also said that the Ben Cat police was wrong to keep Nhut in custody for five days without issuing a detention warrant and reporting the case to the local prosecutor’s office. The Procuracy demanded the Binh Duong Province Police Department punish police officers and investigators who were involved in the case for their unlawful acts.

Nguyen Thanh Tuyen and her husband when he was alive (Photo: Nguoi Lao Dong)