Confession Can Be Used Against Shooting Defendant, Judge Rules

In a case that has drawn great attention in Orange County’s Vietnamese community, a Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that a defendant’s confession to Westminster police that he shot a former Saigon housing official can be used against him.

Judge Jean Rheinheimer, rejecting defense claims that police violated defendant Be Tu Van Tran’s right to remain silent, ruled in a pretrial hearing that his statements to police, including the words, “I shot him. I accept responsibility,” be allowed as evidence in the trial.

Tran is accused of the attempted murder of Tran Khanh Van, who was shot in the stomach and shoulder near his Westminster real estate office on March 18. When Tran was questioned by police, he allegedly admitted that he tailed Van for almost a month and that he wanted to kill him because of his alleged sympathies toward Vietnam’s Communist government, police said.

Detective Mark Franks testified Tuesday that Tran claimed that he was a freedom fighter and that he had told officers that he shot Van “because he loved Commies and had hated Van.” Franks also testified that Tran allegedly said he threw the gun away after the incident.

During a police interview with the defendant, Franks said Tran reached across a police desk to get a closer look at a letter containing a “death threat” against the victim that was mailed to the Vietnamese media. The defendant then said, “I wrote that letter,” according to Franks.

Van, 44, has denied that he is sympathetic toward the Vietnamese government and speculated that 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. 4.

He subsequently has been quoted as saying that when he was interviewed by the magazine, he 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.

The case has drawn considerable interest in the Vietnamese community because of the anti-Communist sentiments held by many Vietnamese who fled their homeland because of the Communists.

Nguyen Tu-A, a reporter with the Viet Press newspaper in Westminster, said, “Van was very well known in Saigon.”

Tu-A, a journalist in Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) who also did part-time work for the Associated Press there, said he knew Van in Vietnam but doubted that the former director general of housing in Saigon supported the Communists.

In news articles since the shooting, Nguyen has emphasized that in the United States “you can’t use violence or kill people” simply because there may be a political disagreement.

Tran told investigators that his father lost his fortune and that his brother, who tried to free Saigon, was beaten and jailed when the city fell to the Communist regime in 1975.

Tran’s attorney, Alan M. May of Santa Ana, expressed dissatisfaction with the judge’s ruling Tuesday, saying that police had violated his client’s rights. However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew R. Gale said he was pleased with Rheinheimer’s decision.

Jury selection in the Tran case continues today. The trial of co-defendant Cu Ngoc Duong, who allegedly drove Tran in a borrowed car the night of the attack and is accused of being an accessory to the attempted murder, will follow Tran’s case.