A Vietnamese appeals court has cut a 13-year jail sentence against a doctor convicted of espionage after he published a US essay on democracy on the Internet.
Pham Hong Son (35) was sentenced to 13 years' jail in June, but an official of the Supreme Court of Appeal in Hanoi said today the jail term had been cut to five years.
A source close to Son said that he would have to serve an additional three years under house arrest.
The appeal hearing, like the original trial, was off-limits to foreign observers and security was tight at the courthouse.
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The case that drew condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups who saw it as a fresh sign of the communist country's intolerance of political dissent.