A prominent Vietnamese human rights lawyer convicted in April for sedition has been released and sent to Germany, sources close to the lawyer said on Friday.

Nguyen Van Dai, 48, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and five years under house arrest for sedition during an April trial.

Dai was the head of an underground online networking group called the Brotherhood for Democracy, which called for democratic reforms in Vietnam’s single-party communist state.

Nguyen Van De, a senior member of the Brotherhood, told newsmen that Dai was  released on Thursday night and promptly flown to Germany.
Duy Hoang, a Washington DC-based spokesman for the Viet Tan, an outlawed dissident group based in California, confirmed the news, telling newsmen that Dai was scheduled to land in Frankfurt on Friday. (dpa/NAN)

– Jun 8, 2018 @ 11:23 GMT |