A disgraced former police official takes the unresolved questions of a high-profile death row case to his grave.
The Latest: News circulated on social media on Oct. 3 regarding the death of Dương Tự Trọng, a 65-year-old former police colonel.
- Trọng previously served as the deputy director of Công an Hải Phòng and the deputy director of the national police department responsible for the administrative management of social order.
- His passing leaves behind unresolved allegations of wrongful conviction in the case of death row prisoner Nguyễn Văn Chưởng.
The Details: Confirmation of his death came from former colleagues and acquaintances online.
- Associate professor Nguyễn Hoàng Ánh, a former lecturer at Đại học Ngoại thương, wrote on Facebook that Trọng, her former classmate at Trường chuyên Thái Phiên, had died of cancer.
- Mai Thanh Hải, a journalist with Thanh Niên, also posted a tribute:
“Go ahead of us, big brother. Find somewhere beautiful, cool, and breezy, and wait for your Hải Phòng brothers to join you for drinks, music, poetry, and singing at the top of our lungs! Farewell to big brother Dương Tự Trọng, Hải Phòng through and through (1962–2026).”
The Background: Trọng was among the police officials who played pivotal roles in the disputed case against Nguyễn Văn Chưởng, which began in 2007.
- As deputy head of Công an Hải Phòng’s criminal investigation agency, Trọng signed the decision opening the murder investigation. According to RFA Tiếng Việt, Atty. Nguyễn Văn Hòa, who led a wrongful-conviction investigation team within the Communist Party’s Central Internal Affairs Commission in 2013–2014, stated that Trọng and Đỗ Hữu Ca directly oversaw the investigation from 2007.
- Chưởng’s father, Nguyễn Trường Chinh, filed a complaint accusing Trọng of using “the most despicable, brutal, and cruel methods to extract confessions through coercion and torture, orchestrate forced testimony, and threaten the lives of Chưởng’s parents, younger brother, wife and children to force him to confess […].”
Furthermore, Trọng later faced prosecution himself for helping his older brother, former maritime administration chief Dương Chí Dũng, flee abroad in 2012 amid the Vinalines corruption case.
- In 2014, Trọng received a 16-year sentence for organizing another person’s flight abroad and another 15-month sentence for abuse of office, totaling 17 years and three months.
- Trọng was released from prison in 2021, nine years before his sentence was due to end.
Why It Matters: Chưởng remains imprisoned awaiting execution. His family, lawyers, and human rights organizations have repeatedly identified what they describe as serious procedural violations that led to his wrongful arrest and conviction.
Trịnh Hữu Long wrote this news article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on October 5, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English.
