Friday, March 5, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News

S.J. doctor claims he was questioned, held in Vietnam

Anti-communist leader says all of his activities medical

BY MARK MCDONALD AND KEN MCLAUGHLIN Mercury News Staff Writers

HANOI -- A prominent Vietnamese-American cardiologist on a teaching mission to Vietnam said Thursday that he had been detained by police and harshly interrogated for three days about his anti-communist political activities in San Jose.

Dr. Ngai Nguyen, 50, the founder of the San Jose-based People's Action Party, an anti-communist emigre group, was allowed to leave Vietnam this morning on a flight to San Francisco. He said that during his visit, which came at the invitation of government health officials, all of his activities were ``strictly medical.''

A government spokeswoman in Hanoi said she had no information about Nguyen's case, and there was no comment from Ho Chi Minh City police or the local People's Committee. The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi is investigating.

Just before midnight Monday, Nguyen said, 15 uniformed police officers arrived at his Ho Chi Minh City hotel and seized his passport, visa and airplane ticket. Then, in a series of daily, nine-hour interrogations he described as ``very brutal, barbaric,'' officers shouted, screamed and demanded that he admit having tried to overthrow the Vietnamese government, a crime that can carry the death penalty.

The officers, who videotaped each session, also said Nguyen had to agree to cease all political activities before being allowed to return to California.

``They said my activities indirectly affect the (Hanoi) government and that if I accept these things (confessions) it will be easier for me,'' Nguyen said Thursday night from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. ``I said no way. I asked for a lawyer but they refused.''

`You're a big fish'

At one point, he said, one of the interrogators told him, ``Don't lie to us. We know all about you. You're a big fish, and we never release a big fish.''

Nguyen, who is affiliated with Columbia San Jose Medical Center, left Vietnam just before noon today and is scheduled to arrive at San Francisco International Airport this evening. He and Chuck Gibaut, a cardiovascular technician, arrived Feb. 22 in Ho Chi Minh City to conduct the first-ever training in angioplasties and angiograms, which are relatively new heart treatments here.

Gibaut returned home Thursday night in San Jose after Nguyen warned him to leave Vietnam.

Gibaut said that when he and Nguyen arrived at Tan Son Nhut airport 12 days ago, Nguyen was questioned by police for about an hour. ``At that point they almost turned us around and sent us home,'' Gibaut said.

The authorities eventually decided to let the two stay, and they were able to do about 20 life-saving procedures, he said, adding that the local media covered the trip extensively.

Then came the knock on the door late Monday night.

Police had asked Nguyen if his American friend was a CIA agent, Gibaut said. Gibaut was told not to leave the hotel -- and at least one security police officer was stationed outside their rooms at all times, he said.

``They shined a flashlight in his eyes. It was like a bad movie,'' Gibaut said. ``We were really looking forward to helping people out, and then they turned it all around like we were there to hurt people.''

U.S. consular official Peter Thorin interviewed Nguyen on Thursday night at his hotel and said he intended to pursue the case through diplomatic channels.

``We're definitely putting our efforts toward keeping this low-profile and to keep from fanning the flames of what has been going on with the guy and the Ho Chi Minh (picture) in L.A.,'' a U.S. Embassy official in Hanoi said this morning, speaking on the condition of anonymity. ``We don't want people rushing out and protesting in San Jose.''

The U.S. Embassy official said Pete Peterson, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, was aware of the Nguyen situation, although it was not immediately known whether Peterson had intervened with Vietnamese authorities.

Vietnamese emigre groups already had scheduled a vigil for tonight at San Jose's Lion Plaza to protest an Orange County shopkeeper who posted a picture of late communist leader Ho Chi Minh and the flag of communist Vietnam.

Teaching doctors

Nguyen, a former president of the San Jose-based Association of Vietnamese Physicians of the Free World, said he had been invited by Ho Chi Minh City's ministry of health to teach 50 Vietnamese doctors the techniques of angioplasty and angiograms. His seminars, he said, were ``a big success and everyone was very excited.''

Nguyen's People's Action Party first burst into the news in December 1996 when 28 party members were arrested by Cambodian authorities and accused of trying to illegally cross the border with Thailand to hold a political meeting. His group seeks a democratic, multi-party system in Vietnam.

Over the angry objections of United Nations refugee officials who feared that the ethnic Vietnamese would be persecuted, Cambodia deported 19 party leaders to Vietnam.

Nguyen said then that most People's Action Party members live in Cambodia, home to some 1 million Vietnamese. But other members live in the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as ``a lot'' in Vietnam, he added.

In another case involving a Vietnamese-American, it was expected that Vu thi Ngoc of Los Angeles would be released today from Xuan Loc prison in Ho Chi Minh City after serving part of an 18-year sentence for smuggling.

She was arrested in December 1992 and sentenced two years later. A U.S. consular official said Ngoc, 52, had received an amnesty from the government and is expected to return to the Boston area.