On the afternoon of July 11, the People's Court of An Giang province opened a first-instance trial of the criminal case against Le Hoang Cuong (born in 1984) and Le Hoang Hieu (born in 1997) both for the crime of "Destroying property"; Nguyen Huy Thao (born in 2001) for the crime of "Not reporting a crime". All 3 defendants reside in Phu Quoc Special Zone, An Giang Province.
According to the indictment, on December 17, 2022, Le Hoang Cuong hired a truck to dig up soil from Mr. L.D.T to level the ground in Suoi Lon hamlet, Duong To commune, Phu Quoc city (now Phu Quoc Special Zone, An Giang province).
At around 6:00 p.m. on December 18, 2022, the oil truck ran out of oil, so H.N.H - Mr. T's worker - called Cuong to ask for money to buy oil. The two sides had a conflict and argument and H threatened to burn Cuong's house.
Angry, Cuong called Mr. T and threatened to burn the excavator if he had not asked H to come and talk. T replied that his excavator was his, Cuong burned it if he could.
being challenged by Mr. T, Cuong called his younger brother Le Hoang Hieu to tell Hieu to get down and burn the excavator. Hearing that, Hieu took a plastic can to buy 400,000 VND for gasoline, then went to the location where the truck was parked, watered the gasoline on the truck and set it on fire.
Cuong also asked Nguyen Huy Thao to go to the excavator area to keep the vehicle, not to let it run away, waiting for Cuong to come back to handle it.
After burning, Hieu left the plastic can with gas at the scene and left. After that, Hieu invited Thao to take him back to the scene to film a video of the burned vehicle and send it to Cuong.
After committing the crime, on the morning of December 19, 2022, Hieu went to the police to surrender and confess to all of his crimes.
At the end of the trial, the Trial Council sentenced Le Hoang Cuong to 3.5 years in prison, Le Hoang Hieu to 2 years and 9 months in prison (both for the crime of "Destroying property"). Nguyen Huy Thao spent 1 year of non-custodial reform for the crime of "Not reporting a crime", and assigned the defendant to the local government for supervision and education while serving the sentence.
