Police in the southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau on Sunday evening confirmed they had brought legal proceedings against an inmate after he allegedly beat a fellow prisoner to death last week.

Le Hoang Quang, 21, is being investigated for “deliberately inflicting bodily harm on another person, resulting in death,” according to a local senior police officer.

The offense is punishable by 7 to 14 years imprisonment, according to Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Colonel Phan Dang Ha, chief of the office of the province’s investigative police agency, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Sunday that Quang is serving a sentence for another offense at a detention facility in the outlying district of Chau Duc.

Meanwhile, the victim, Nguyen Q. L., 36, began serving a six-month jail sentence for gambling at the same facility on May 4, according to preliminary information.

L. was placed in the same cell as Quang and four other inmates.

On the afternoon of May 7, L. got into a dispute with Quang, and they ended up having a fight with each other.

At midnight on the same day, Quang allegedly hit L. multiple times with a police baton he had stolen.

The victim was found dead the following morning.

Quang confessed to having stolen the nightstick from the warden’s quarters and hidden it inside his cell.

In photos of the victim provided by his family, his body is badly bruised.

A leader of the provincial People’s Procuracy, which acts as the legal representative of the prosecution in Vietnam’s legal system, said on Sunday that the agency was planning to inspect legal compliance at the custody suite of the district police station.

A team of officials from the Supreme People’s Procuracy of Vietnam is also carrying out an independent investigation into the incident, the leader said.

The body of Nguyen Q. L., who was found dead inside a cell at a custody suite of a police station in Chau Duc District, Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, Vietnam on May 8, 2020, is full of bruises in this photo provided by the victim’s family.

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