Pubdate: Sat, 27 May 2000
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2000 The Toronto Star
Contact:  One Yonge St., Toronto ON, M5E 1E6
Fax: (416) 869-4322
Website: http://www.thestar.com/
Forum: http://www.thestar.com/editorial/disc_board/
Author: Dale Anne Freed and Harold Levy, Staff Reporters

FAMILY TO GET VIETNAM VISAS

Hanoi Says It Will Turn Over Remains Of Executed Woman

Trung Le's prayers have been answered.

The oldest son of Nguyen Thi Hiep and three members of his family will get
their visas for travel to Vietnam today to retrieve the remains of the
executed woman.

"We have permission to go to Vietnam," said Le, 26, who just learned they'd
get the visas late yesterday morning.

"We will get to bring my mother's ashes home from Vietnam," said Le, oldest
son of Nguyen, the first Canadian known to have been executed on
drug-related charges.

"They told us it's for sure they will release her remains but the Vietnamese
government still won't tell us what day and when," he said.

"I can't sit still I'm so excited," said Le, who will be accompanied on the
trip by his younger brother Tu, 21, his uncle Nguyen Hung, 36, and his aunt
Nguyen Lien, 46. The four flights were paid for by funds raised by the
Toronto-based Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, Le said.

It's been 33 days since the 43-year-old Toronto woman was gagged,
blindfolded and secretly executed at dawn by firing squad as a convicted
drug smuggler.

Nguyen and her mother Tran Thi Cam, 74, were caught at Hanoi's Hanoi's Noi
Bai airport on April 25, 1996, carrying 5.4 kilos of heroin hidden in five
lacquered art panels.

Toronto police believe the two may have been duped into carrying the heroin
by an international drug ring.

According to her family's Buddhist beliefs Nguyen's body must be returned to
her family in Canada within 49 days in order for her spirit to rest
comfortably in the afterworld.

"My prayers have been answered and the prayers of my whole family. I feel
very happy my family will be reunited," Nguyen's widowed husband Tran Hieu,
56, said in a conference call to Hanoi yesterday, translated by his stepson
Trung Le, of Brampton.

Tran Hieu said he and Canadian ambassador Cecile Latour will greet his
family when they arrive at Hanoi's Noi Bai airport on Tuesday. "I heard that
from the ambassador's office on Friday," Tran Hieu said.

Latour, who had been recalled to Ottawa as a protest over the execution, has
left Canada and is en route to Vietnam to help the family negotiate with the
Vietnamese government.

The ambassador will be seeking a meeting with the Vietnamese foreign
minister in advance of the family's arrival, said a spokesperson for the
foreign affairs ministry.

Tran Hieu, who has been in Hanoi for four years, and arrived there three
days after his wife's arrest, said that on Wednesday, "We will go to a
meeting with the foreign affairs department of Vietnam. . .to talk about my
wife's body. That's all I've heard from Canadian authorities."

"I know my wife's remains will be released. But I'm very worried about my
mother-in-law's situation," he said.

Four years ago, despite protests of innocence, Tran Thi Cam was sentenced to
life imprisonment at Thanh Xuan detention camp 30 kilometres outside Hanoi.

Tran Thi Cam is still unaware her daughter was executed.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy has welcomed Hanoi's decision to
return the remains as "a proper courtesy and dignity," and has suggested
Tran's release would be "a very important next step," to normalization of
relations.

Nguyen's sudden execution prompted Canada to cancel a program to help
Vietnam into the World Trade Organization.

Ottawa also boycotted celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the end of the
Vietnam War, cut all contacts with Vietnam at the ministerial level,
cancelled consultations on millions of dollars' worth of new aid programs
and threatened to cut aid unless Tran Thi Cam was released from prison.
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