Two Vietnamese security officials who visited New Zealand in March have been accused of sexually assaulting two female waitresses at a restaurant in the capital, Wellington.
The incident occurred a few days before Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s trip to the country.
“Police established who our suspects were and that they were Vietnamese officials, visiting on official business,” Detective Inspector John Van Den Heuvel said in a statement.
“Police have no doubt these two women were indecently assaulted by two men while working and had these men still been in New Zealand we would have pursued criminal charges,” he said.
Because New Zealand has no extradition treaty with Vietnam, police can’t begin extradition proceedings, which was why the suspects haven’t been charged, he said.
Details of the incident come a month after a member of Vietnamese President Luong Cuong’s official delegation to Chile was arrested on sexual assault charges ahead of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
According to The New Zealand Herald, police have reviewed CCTV footage from the Wellington restaurant’s karaoke room and spoke to witnesses.
A group of six men and two women ate at the Saigon restaurant on March 4. Afterward, the group moved to a private karaoke room away from the main restaurant area, according to New Zealand online news outlet Stuff.
Waitress’s account
One of the waitresses, Alison Cook, 19, told Stuff that she drank several glasses of red wine with the group. At one point, two men, whose names she didn’t know, forced alcohol down her throat, she said.
“I was also thinking to myself: these are the head of police of Vietnam,” she said. “They’re literally security guys. Surely, they’ll uphold their job title or have some decency.”
Cook said she quickly became intoxicated, but remembered one of the men pushing her against a wall and grasping her nipples. When she woke the next morning, she found a cut on her nipple, she told Stuff.
“It felt like I was hit by a truck, honestly. It was worse than a hangover,” she said. “I was still so just out of it. Every time I stood up, it felt like I was going to fall flat on my face again. And that’s when I started thinking, ‘this doesn’t feel like I was just drunk.’”
Saigon owner Giang Do confirmed to Stuff he was in the restaurant that night. But Do said he didn’t pressure his staff to drink alcohol and didn’t witness any inappropriate behavior from the Vietnamese officials.
Cook said she went to the hospital the next evening, and then she and another waitress called the police to report the incident. Later, they visited Wellington Central Police Station to report the assault, according to Stuff.
Police wrote a letter -– sent through New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade -– to the Vietnamese ambassador, that expressed “New Zealand Police’s deep concern over this behavior.”
“While we know this is not the outcome they would have hoped for, police have exhausted all plausible investigative avenues,” Van Den Heuvel said.
‘Got away with their crimes’
Radio Free Asia called the Vietnamese Embassy in Wellington on Wednesday to seek comments on the incident, but the person who answered the phone said “the embassy is not aware of the information.”
Cook told Stuff that she feels the officials have “got away with their crimes.” In early November, she requested a copy of her police file, which she has a right to under privacy laws. Police have yet to respond, she said.
A female interpreter, who used to accompany many Vietnamese government and business delegations to China, told RFA on condition of anonymity that government officials often see business trips abroad as opportunities to “have sexual adventures,” including sex with foreigners.
“If the host country doesn’t provide such entertainment, the entourage will find it themselves to provide for their leader,” she said.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.