Vietnamese Refugee Allegedly Confesses to Shooting Attack

A Vietnamese refugee has admitted that he gunned down a former Saigon housing official last week because he believed the man supported the Hanoi government, Westminster police said Saturday.

Be Tu Van Tran, 30, of Costa Mesa was arrested Friday on suspicion of attempted murder in the shooting of Tran Khanh Van, who was shot in the shoulder and stomach Tuesday night near his Westminster real estate office, Westminster Detective Mark Frank said.

The suspect told investigators that his father lost his fortune and his brother, who tried to flee Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City), was beaten and jailed when the city fell to the Communist regime in 1975, Frank said.

Frank said the suspect had been “upset at Mr. Tran Khanh Van. He was mad at him. It was based on what he perceived to be Mr. Tran Khanh Van’s sympathies toward the current government in Vietnam.”

No Comment on Arrest

During an interview Saturday at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana, where he is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail, Tran would not comment on his arrest or alleged confession. However, he said he has never been to Van’s home or office and that he does not drive a silver Oldsmobile, which police described as the car that led them to the suspect.

Tran said he believes Van is a Communist, and that “we lost South Vietnam because of the enemy inside, such as him (Van).”

Van, 44, said he mistakenly drew the wrath of anti-Communist Vietnamese in Southern California because of brief remarks he made in a Los Angeles Times Magazine article Jan. 5. During an interview Friday at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, he said he is a staunch anti-Communist and that, when interviewed by the magazine, had intended only “to suggest” that diplomatic ties be renewed between Vietnam and the United States to secure the release of political prisoners and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Van, a former director general of housing in Saigon who now sells residential real estate in Orange County, said he fears for the safety of his family because of misperceptions of his political stand.

He remained in stable condition Saturday, recovering from wounds to his shoulder and stomach. Police said Van told them that he did not know or even recognize the name of his suspected assailant.

Tip Led to Suspect

Frank said a witness who reported the license plate and description of a car seen near Van’s Santa Ana home the day Van was shot led investigators to the suspect.

“I feel secure about (the arrest) because police have been very effective,” Van said. “We have learned one thing since coming to America: this is a country of law. We have to cooperate with authorities because we can never stop crime without them.”

Tran was arrested Friday after he allegedly admitted the attack during interrogation by detectives at the police station.

The suspect, a former high school English and mathematics teacher in Vietnam, is employed by the Los Angeles Times as a part-time driver, delivering newspapers to street racks and stores.

Tran, wearing a jail-issue jump suit and fidgeting with scrap paper, seemed slightly nervous Saturday during a half-hour interview. He was polite but firm in his refusal to discuss his arrest but talked openly about his anti-Communist beliefs.

One of seven children, Tran fled Vietnam when Saigon fell, and only his youngest brother made it to America with him. Tran’s parents and some other family members live in Australia; the rest remain in Vietnam, and many of them are still in prison, Tran said.

His father, who owned an auto parts and repair shop, lost the business and the family home in the city of Sadec, about 100 miles from Ho Chi Minh City. His father and a brother were imprisoned by the Marxist regime, Tran said, but they eventually escaped.

“My father and brother . . . (the) Communists made them crazy in jail,” Tran said, his voice rising. “My brother tried to escape and they caught him and put him in jail. After jail he crazy, he live with my parents (in Australia) right now. He’s 27 and crazy.”

Police would not comment on whether they believe the shooting was the action of an individual or an organized plot.

Although Frank said no other suspects are being sought, he would not comment when asked if there was more than one person in the car seen near Van’s house before the 8:30 p.m. attack Tuesday.

Tran said he is a member, but not a leader, of the Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, an anti-Communist group headquartered in Orange County. Scattered factions of the group claim to support resistance fighters in Vietnam in their attempts to overthrow the government.

Tran said that, to his knowledge, the Front had nothing to do with the shooting. Frank said investigators had not asked Tran that question before the suspect indicated that he no longer wanted to be interviewed, but that the Front had not claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Cao Thi, president of the Vietnamese League of Orange County and a “supporter” of the Front, said Saturday that “the policy of the Front . . . doesn’t have anything to do with violence or is against the law in this country. If this man is the right man, it’s very individual, not from the Front or any group,” which Thi said “tries to get the moral support for the people around the world to support the people in Vietnam to liberate the people from Communist.”

Police said Tran does not have a criminal record, and that they have not found the weapon, believed to be a revolver, used in the attack.

Tran said he is not a member of the Vietnamese Organization to Exterminate Communists and Restore the Nation, which claimed responsibility for the shooting in a letter received Wednesday by Vietnamese-language papers in Orange County. Westminster police have questioned whether the organization, which has claimed responsibility for the slayings of other refugees, is actually a “group” instead of radical individuals.

When asked if the Front believes that all Communists should be eliminated, Tran answered with a nod. He said he is a “soldier,” rather than a leader of the group.

Thi said Tran was a “very good guy,” an “honest guy and kind to everybody.”

Tran shares a Costa Mesa home with his brother, who is 19 or 20 years old. He said neither he, his brother nor anyone else he knows drives a silver Oldsmobile, which Frank described as being the car seen in Van’s neighborhood the day Van was shot in the parking lot across the street from his business. “I drive a big pickup truck, my brother (drives) a Toyota or Datsun station wagon,” he said.

The husband and wife who rent rooms to Tran and his brother said the two men moved in three months ago because the home is a few blocks from Orange Coast College, where Tran attends classes, according to the woman. She said Tran drives a brown Toyota truck and that his brother, Cuong Tran, drives a pale blue Honda.

Van said Saturday that he did not get a good look at his assailant during the brief struggle before he was wounded, and did not know if the man fled on foot or by vehicle.