Dang Van Hai at the court

VIETNAM: SAIGON WOMAN WANTS TO MARRY A DEATH ROW PRISONER

March 21, 2014: The Supreme People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City recently received the application of a 26-year-old woman proposing to register marriage to a 57-year-old death-row prisoner.
The lucky prisoner is Mr. Dang Van Hai, who was sentenced to death by the HCM City People's Court on November 15, 2013, in the case of embezzlement and appropriation of property occurring at the Financial Leasing Company.
In the application submitted to the Court of Appeal of the Supreme People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Justice and the Ministry of Public Security, the couple expressed their wishes to get married to each other.
In the petition, Dang Van Hai wrote: "This is the legitimate and humane aspirations of us so our two children will have their legal father."
The woman, named L. wrote: "For me personally, at a young age, getting married with Mr. Dang Van Hai means facing possible risks in the future because I do not know whether Hai’s appeals will be considered or not.”
“Given the foreseen difficulties, at the moment, as a wife, I still want to visit and take care of him during the time waiting for the appeal court and this is also a way of spiritual encouragement to him. Our children, though they are very young, will have their father, though he is a death-row prisoner."
In an apartment in District 7, HCM City, L. said: "We lived together in 2006 and had the first child in 2007. We lived happily together but we did not register for marriage."
Because of the huge difference in age between L. and Mr. Dang Van Hai, their relationship was protested by both families and even their relatives and friends.
“People said I loved his money but now he is in prison. At this moment, nobody goes to the prison to fight over him against me, so I wish that he will live in peace in his future days," she said.
She said after Hai was arrested, she has visited and taken care for him as a wife. "But I do not have an official position to be allowed to visit him often," she added.
She said she thought a lot of before making the decision. "After the trial court pronounced the death sentence, he collapsed very quickly. Every time I visited him in prison, with our first daughter, she often told her father: “When I grow up, I will take care of you.”
“It seems that his all faith is put on her. I think that now he is in prison so nobody would think that I marry him for money. So I told him my decision.”
"I want to do that as quickly as possible because the court of appeals is not far.”
Ms. Le Thi Binh Minh, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Justice said the agency would create favorable conditions for the couple to register marriage.
However, Mr. Quang Duc Tuyen, deputy chief judge of the HCM City Supreme People's Court said this is an unprecedented case in Ho Chi Minh City so it will have to be considered carefully. If the law does not prohibited, the court will create favorable conditions for the two people to register their marriage.
Lawyer Tran Thi Mien from the HCM City Bar Association said that if both parties meet the conditions of a marriage and are not in the cases of prohibited marriages under Articles 9, 10 of the Law on Marriage and Family 2000, the prisoner still has the right for registration of marriage. (Sources: english.vietnamnet.vn, 21/03/2014)