Death sentence upheld for man who hammered 10 nails into the head of a 3-year-old girl in Hanoi

Nguyen Trung Huyen in court

On April 17, the High People's Court in Hanoi heard the appeal of defendant Nguyen Trung Huyen (born in 1992, residing in Thach That district, Hanoi).

The trial was opened after the defendant filed an appeal to reduce the death sentence imposed in October 2022.

The defendant changed his testimony.

At the appeal court, Huyen suddenly changed the content of his appeal from asking for a reduced sentence to claiming innocence.

Huyen changed his testimony and did not admit to the crime as stated in the first instance verdict. The defendant claimed that during the investigation, Huyen was forced to confess and was tortured, so he had to confess to the crime. The defendant requested the panel of judges to consider annulling the first instance verdict and reinvestigate and retry.

However, the panel of judges determined that the court of first instance had considered and evaluated the entire case, determining that the defendant's criminal behavior was particularly serious, cruel, and inhumane, with no possibility of reformation into a normal person, useful to society, so applying the highest penalty of death to eliminate him from social life was justified.

Therefore, the appellate court decided not to accept the appeal, upholding the first instance verdict sentencing Nguyen Trung Huyen to 4 years in prison for Intentional Infliction of Injury, death penalty for Murder, the total sentence is death penalty.

“The defendant’s actions were condemned by society and caused public outrage. The defendant committed a crime that involved killing a child, committing the crime in a barbaric, hooligan manner, with a base motive,” the panel concluded.

Hammer 10 nails into the girl's head

According to the first instance verdict, in 2012, Ms. NTL (27 years old, living in Hanoi) divorced and raised her daughter, D.NA (3 years old). After that, Ms. L. had a relationship with Huyen, so she brought her daughter to live with Huyen at a boarding house in Thach That district.

During the time living with Ms. L. and her child, Huyen thought that A. was disobedient, so she repeatedly tortured, beat, and murdered the victim. The defendant stated that she tortured the child so that she would not have to raise him and would not let the child affect the lives of Huyen and her lover.

From September 2021 to the end of January 2022, Nguyen Trung Huyen tortured child D.NA 5 times. Once, Huyen dropped industrial dry glue powder into the victim's nose. On the morning of January 17, 2022, Huyen used a plastic-coated concrete dumbbell to continuously hammer 10 small nails about 2.1cm long into the top of child A's head, causing serious injuries to the victim.

In addition, on October 9, 2021, Huyen forced the girl to drink weed killer but was discovered in time by Ms. L. and local people, who took the victim to the emergency room and saved her life.

On the evening of March 12, D.NA died after nearly 2 months of treatment at Xanh Pon Hospital. Doctors said the girl suffered brain damage due to foreign objects in her head and could not recover. Huyen was later arrested by the police to investigate the murder.

Regarding Ms. L. (the victim's mother), the investigation results determined that she and Nguyen Trung Huyen rented a room to live together. Ms. L. did not know that Huyen had tortured, beaten, and attempted to murder A. The prosecution agency initially did not mention prosecuting Ms. L., but the court of first instance recommended that the investigation agency continue to clarify this woman's actions.

For Huyen, the court of first instance sentenced the defendant to death for murder and 4 years in prison for intentional injury, with a total sentence of death.

According to Zing

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