A Canadian man living in Khanh Hoa Province, south-central Vietnam has reclaimed his daughter’s passport from the provincial public security department, which seized the personal document to facilitate an investigation into a traffic accident in which the two foreigners were victims earlier this month.

The return of the Canadian passport owned by the seven-year-old daughter of Gélinas Guy came on Sunday evening after the man called for help from his home country’s competent agencies, his representative said on Monday.

The designated Canadian agencies, particularly the Global Affairs Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam, and the Canadian Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, sent a diplomatic note to the Vietnamese authorities regarding Guy’s case.

TVA, the largest television broadcaster in Québec, where Guy resides in Canada, also reported on March 21 and 22 on the traffic accident that had happened to his family on March 3.

When Guy, his Vietnamese wife, and their daughter were riding a scooter on Vo Nguyen Giap Street in Khanh Hoa’s Dien Khanh District at around 4:30 pm on that day, a Mercedes-Benz hit them.

The impact of the collision killed the wife two days after her hospitalization while Guy and their daughter were also injured.

After his wife’s death, Guy decided to take his daughter back to Canada for further treatment and purchased their air tickets for a flight scheduled for March 19.

However, when Guy and his daughter went to the immigration bureau of the Khanh Hoa Public Security Department to complete exit procedures on March 14, his application was rejected and the girl had her passport withheld.

Three days later, the investigation agency under the department sent Guy a notice effective from the same day until July 16 to suspend him from leaving Vietnam, requiring him to remain in the country in order to facilitate the investigation into the case.

On March 20, Guy sent a request to a number of relevant Vietnamese agencies to have his exit suspension removed, highlighting that he had not received any notice of legal proceedings in the case as of the day and he is the victim, not a defendant or an alleged offender who should be subject to such a restriction.

Meanwhile, the probe into the accident is ongoing after officers determined the owner of the Mercedes-Benz, who also drove it and caused the deadly collision, is Ngo Duy Binh, a banking officer of Vietcombank's branch in Dien Khanh District.

Binh fled the scene in the car right after the crash.

Police officers later found the car at the basement of a shopping mall on Tran Phu Street in Nha Trang City, the provincial capital, on March 7 following a report by local people in response to a public search for the vehicle, which was widely announced on social media.

The account given by Luong Phan Sang, director of Vietcombank Khanh Hoa, on March 9 showed that Binh had applied for a day off on March 3, the Friday when the accident occurred, before submitting a request on March 6 for a temporary suspension of his labor contract with the bank for three months.

Sang said he promptly approved Binh’s request.

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