INS Probes O.C. Refugee’s Alleged Atrocities

An Orange County Vietnamese refugee is under investigation by federal immigration officials for allegedly committing atrocities against fellow prisoners at a communist “re-education” camp more than two decades ago, including beating a man to death.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service began the investigation last year after several survivors of the Thanh Cam prison camp near Hanoi identified Thi Dinh Bui of Garden Grove as one of the camp’s brutal enforcers.

Bui, 60, was a trusty at the camp after the Vietnam War and has lived a quiet existence in Orange County’s Vietnamese community since 1990.

Bui, a former South Vietnamese army captain, could not be reached for comment Monday, but a woman who identified herself as his wife denied Bui had committed any atrocities.

“If he’s brutal like that, how could I have lived with him for these many years?” Dinh Ngoc said. He is a “good person. . . . He’s been a soldier for years and he’s not a communist. He’s not a killer. . . . And some day we will be able to clear this.”

But Father Le Huu Nguyen, a former prisoner and Bui’s chief accuser, said he remembers a much different man. The priest said he saw Bui kill prisoner Tiep Van Dang, a former major in the South Vietnamese air force, after an escape attempt.

“This man was used by the communists, but he is innately evil,” Nguyen said Monday. “I saw what I saw. The truth is still the truth.”

If an immigration judge finds Bui guilty of the accusations, he may lose his refugee status and be deported, INS officials said Monday. However, his fate is unclear because Vietnam does not accept expatriates convicted of crimes abroad. “We are actively looking into this case,” said INS Associate General Counsel Sarah Kendall.

She declined to provide further details, citing the agency’s policy not to comment on investigations in progress. She was unaware of any similar cases involving Vietnamese refugees but added that the INS routinely investigates all allegations.

Some Vietnamese community leaders in Orange County, home to 135,000 Vietnamese Americans, on Monday cautioned against a rush to judgment.

“The Vietnamese community is furious,” community activist Cong Tran said, “but the reality is, there are two sides to the story, and people don’t know what the real truth is.”

The accusations against Bui surfaced in 1995, when Nguyen, an ordained Catholic priest who lives in New Zealand and often visits the United States, detailed his experiences at Thanh Cam between 1976 and 1988 in his memoir.

The bamboo-and-dirt camp was one of hundreds of re-education camps set up by the communist government to indoctrinate the defeated South Vietnamese.

Nguyen and Bui were fellow inmates at the camp, but Bui was a trusty and was given privileges by the guards in exchange for keeping order among the prisoners.

“I wanted to write stories about the prison,” Nguyen said when reached by telephone Monday in Washington. “Many people have known about this incident, but people don’t know the reasons or consequences. Bui went to prison with us, and the communists used him to be a trusty, but he abused his powers. He tortured and killed people.”

Nguyen’s unpublished manuscript circulated on the Internet among Vietnamese refugees around the world, most of whom still hold vivid memories of the horrific war.

One of those who saw the manuscript was Nguyen Dinh Thang, executive director of Boat People S.O.S., a Washington-based Vietnamese American advocacy group.

Thang said he filed a complaint against Bui with the INS in March 2000, after confirming the priest’s account with other Thanh Cam survivors and relatives of prisoners who perished at the camp.

“He escaped justice in Vietnam,” Thang said of Bui. “And he has eluded justice in the U.S. as well.”

Thang’s complaint to the INS included an affidavit from Nguyen that accused Bui of torture and murder at the camp.

On May 1, 1979, Nguyen and four other prisoners escaped but were caught by guards the next day. All five were severely beaten by the guards and Bui, the priest’s affidavit stated.

“I was kicked and beaten on until I was unconscious,” Nguyen said Monday. “Then Bui took water and splashed it on my face, and he beat me and dragged me to my room. I saw him stomp on Maj. Tiep Van Dang’s stomach until he was dead. He did the same thing to me, but I survived.”

In 1988, the priest was transferred to another re-education camp. He stayed there for a year and was released. He then fled to Cambodia and Thailand and eventually to New Zealand, he said.

“I thought I would never write about it, but in 1995, when I heard Bui was in Orange County in California, I had to write,” the priest said.

Another former Thanh Cam prisoner said he did not witness the killing by Bui, but he heard accounts of the fatal beating from other inmates.

“I saw him slap or kick prisoners in the stomach,” said Son Le, 55, who spent four years at the Thanh Cam camp. “They closed the gates and locked us up. Even though I didn’t see what happened, I heard it.”

Le, now living in Fullerton, said Bui usually punished people who hid food in their clothing after a day working in the fields.

“People were so hungry, so they hid the fruits or vegetables under their clothing,” Le said. “But Bui searched each person.”

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Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this story.