Alleged Accomplice Jailed in Shooting of Ex-Vietnam Official

A man police say was an accomplice in the March 18 shooting of a former Vietnamese housing official in Westminster was arrested Friday and charged with attempted murder.

Westminster police identified the man as Cu Ngoc Duong, 29, of Santa Ana, who, investigators said, has admitted acting as driver for the man who did the shooting.

Police arrested Duong at the offices of the Vietnamese League, which is located at the same Westminster intersection--Bolsa Avenue and Ward Street--where the attack took place.

A worker at the league office, who asked not to be identified, said Duong is a volunteer counselor who has been working in the office for two to three weeks. The worker said that Duong worked as a grocery store employee earlier and that he is single.

Police described the league as one of several Vietnamese anti-Communist organizations in Orange County.

Police said a witness’s description of a car seen parked near the site of the attack eventually led them to Duong, the registered owner of a car that fits the description.

They said Duong admitted driving Be Tu Van Tran, 30, of Costa Mesa, a former Vietnamese high school teacher, to the intersection, saw him shoot Tran Khan Van, 44, of Westminster, then drove him away.

Tran, who was arrested March 21 and charged with attempted murder, also has confessed, officers said, but he pleaded not guilty to the charges in court. On Friday, he was ordered to stand trial in Superior Court.

Tran remains in County Jail, unable to make $50,000 bail; Duong was booked and held there in lieu of $50,000 bail.

According to police, Tran, a truck driver and part-time Orange Coast College student, said he was upset by remarks Van made in an article in the Jan. 5 edition of the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

“He was mad at him. It was based on what he perceived to be . . . Van’s sympathies toward the government in Vietnam,” said Westminster Police Detective Mark Frank.

The article reported that Van had helped write two computer programs for the Vietnamese government: one that interprets weather changes and their effect on agricultural yields and another that keeps track of cash flow in the national bank.

“It’s illogical that Vietnamese should still want to kill each other,” Van said in the article. “What’s important is that 15% of the children in my country are retarded due to malnutrition.”

He said the only way to change the Vietnamese government’s repressive Marxism “is to work with those who will become the next generation of leaders.”

Police quoted Tran as saying he believes that Van is a Communist.

During a jail interview with The Times, Tran said he is a “soldier” of the Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, which is headquartered in Orange County. Asked whether the Front believes all Communists should be eliminated, he nodded assent.

Van, formerly director general of housing in Saigon, now sells residential real estate in Orange County. Police say he was walking to his car from a restaurant where he had dined with clients when he was confronted by a man.

The two scuffled, and the attacker fired four to six shots from a small-caliber handgun. Van was struck in the shoulder and stomach but survived the attack.

Police declined comment on whether more arrests are possible in the case.

Faces Arraignment

Duong is expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Municipal Court on the attempted-murder charge.

Tran is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court on April 14.

At Tran’s preliminary hearing Friday, West Orange County Municipal Judge Marvin G. Weeks rejected arguments by defense attorney Alan May that there had been no positive identification of Tran as the man who shot Tran Khan Van twice outside a Westminster restaurant.

May said Van originally had told police that the man who shot him was 23 years old, 5 feet, 5 inches tall, weighed 125 pounds and had medium-length, wavy hair.

Tran is 5-foot-6 and has short, straight hair, May said.