The wife of a Vietnamese fishing boat captain killed by the Thai Marine Police has taken legal action demanding compensation from Thailand.
Nguyen Thi Kim Phoung has asked Ha Hai & Associates, a law firm based in Ho Chi Minh City, to act on her behalf. Another injured Vietnamese fisherman has done the same, the Tuoi Tre News reported.
Mrs Phoung's husband, Ngo Van Sinh, was killed by a Thai police marine ship on Sept 11 in a shooting that injured another two. The incident involved six fishing boats, one of them skippered by Sing, according to reports by the Vietnamese media. But the Thai media said only five trawlers were at the scene.
The shootings in the Gulf of Thailand took place about 40 kilometres off Narathiwat province in what national police chief Somyot Pumpunmuang said on Sept 17 were disputed waters claimed by Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
The Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department says the location is unsettled only between Vietnam and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Tuoi Tre reported Thursday that a Vietnam coast guard unit in the southernmost province of Ca Mau escorted three Thai fishing ships out of Vietnamese waters after discovering them fishing illegally there Monday.
Seeking justice
"I wish lawyers and state agencies will help me obtain justice for my deceased husband, so that his soul can rest in peace in the other world and my children will not suffer from a complex that their father violated the law so seriously that he was shot dead by the Thai police,'' Tuoi Tre quoted her as telling Le Van Duc, an attorney at the firm.
Ha Hai, the law firm's owner, said Thai police would have been over-reacting even if the Vietnamese boats had been in Thai territory. In any case, they acted in violation of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Vietnamese online media outlet asserted.
The pact calls for protection of civil rights between signatory countries.
Pol Gen Somyot said on Sept 17 that marine police had acted in self-defence, as the Vietnamese boats were trying to ram the Thai police vessel.
Marine Police commander Pol Maj Gen Grittapol Yeesakhorn also said on Sept 17 that the shootings were shots fired in warning for self-protection of his officers as their boat was surrounded by the hostile Vietnamese fishermen.