Viet Refugee Claims He Shot Man, Police Say

A Vietnamese refugee has allegedly confessed 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, said Westminster police Detective Mark Frank.

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.”

Van, 44, has said that he thinks he mistakenly drew the wrath of anti-Communist Vietnamese in Southern California because of brief remarks he made in a January Los Angeles Times Magazine article.

Van said that he actually is a staunch anti-Communist himself and that the only intent he had when interviewed by the magazine was “to suggest” that diplomatic ties be renewed between Vietnam and the United States to secure the release of political prisoners and delivery of humanitarian aid.

Van, in an interview Friday at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, said he now fears for the safety of his family because of misperceptions of his political stand. Van, who was struck by two bullets, was listed in stable condition.

Police said Saturday that Tran was arrested after a witness gave police a license plate number and description of a car seen at the victim’s Santa Ana home the day of the shooting.

Tran was booked Friday after he allegedly confessed to the attack during interrogation by detectives at the police station.

The suspect, a former high school English and math teacher in Vietnam, is a part-time newspaper deliveryman for The Times. He told detectives that some of his relatives remain in Vietnam.

Tran, who is being held in the Orange County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail, said he is a “soldier,” 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 who are attempting to overthrow the government in Vietnam. Tran said that, to his knowledge, the group had nothing to do with Van’s shooting. When asked whether the Front believes all communists should be eliminated, Tran nodded in agreement.