On Oct. 3, former police Col. Dương Tự Trọng—the man who directed the 2007 investigation into death row inmate Nguyễn Văn Chưởng in Hải Phòng—died of cancer.
At noon on Oct. 5, Luật Khoa sat down with Chưởng’s father, Nguyễn Trường Chinh, to discuss the colonel’s passing. The inmate’s family continues to maintain that he was wrongfully convicted under Trọng’s investigation.
This interview has been edited to remove repetition and some extraneous details while preserving the interviewee’s spoken language as closely as possible.
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Reporter: How did you feel when you heard that Dương Tự Trọng had died?
Nguyễn Trường Chinh: I heard last night that Dương Tự Trọng had died, and what troubled me was that Nguyễn Văn Chưởng’s case still has not been resolved. Ever since Trọng came home from prison, he knew we were seeking justice for a wrongful conviction. At one point, I called him, but he did not answer.
Then yesterday, I heard he had died. That is one human life. But consider the circumstances: His father, Dương Khắc Thụ, was once the director of the Hải Phòng police, and Dương Tự Trọng’s siblings were all in the police force. Some people say Dương Tự Trọng committed his crime out of love for his older brother.
So I ask, why is his crime described as saving his brother Dương Chí Dũng out of family loyalty, while Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn and Nguyễn Văn Chưởng are brothers, too? Yet when the younger brother, Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn, filed a petition asserting his brother’s innocence, he was arrested and beaten. Dương Tự Trọng himself signed the order to arrest Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn on Aug. 10, 2007.
It was an emergency arrest. Was Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn fleeing? No, then why arrest him on an emergency basis? He was not fleeing, and he was committing no crime. He had simply gone to the Hải Phòng police investigation agency to submit a petition.
This is what upset me when I heard the news yesterday: One side consists of ordinary people, the other of officials, and the two realities are so far apart.
It is not that I am pleased that someone has died. No. Something about it leaves me unsettled. I cannot quite explain my feelings. Honestly, I am neither glad nor content. I wanted him to live to see what it would be like when Nguyễn Văn Chưởng came home. But he died too soon. Far too soon.
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Have you ever met Dương Tự Trọng?
I never met him. I went to the police investigation agency many times, but I only met a man named Long, who headed Team 4 at his investigation agency.
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What can you tell us about Dương Tự Trọng’s role in Nguyễn Văn Chưởng’s case?
Dương Tự Trọng played the central role in the case of Nguyễn Văn Chưởng. Here is why. On Aug. 2, 2007, he himself signed the order to arrest Nguyễn Văn Chưởng at his rented accommodation. His role was the main one. Đỗ Hữu Ca was the chief of the police, but his role was secondary. Directing the arrest, interrogation, and torture—all of it was the work of Dương Tự Trọng.
On Aug. 10, 2007, my son Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn went there [to the police station] at about 9 a.m. to submit a petition [asserting that Nguyễn Văn Chưởng was innocent], and they accepted it. Hòa [who had accompanied Đoàn] waited until 11 a.m., but Đoàn had not come out. By 11:30 a.m., he knew Nguyễn Trọng Đoàn had been arrested.
He came home and told me immediately. It was already 1:30 p.m. when Hòa got back, and he looked exhausted. I told him, whatever had happened, he should eat first and then tell us.
But honestly, the whole family was anxious and restless that day. Once we heard Đoàn had been arrested, everyone was worried. My wife cried again and fainted.
That is why, in this case, Dương Tự Trọng was the ringleader who brought disaster upon the family of the death row inmate, Nguyễn Văn Chưởng. He destroyed an entire family, an entire extended family—utterly destroyed us. There is nothing more to say.
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Have Đoàn and Chưởng ever told you anything about Dương Tự Trọng?
Đoàn only learned about the arrest order after he came home. And it was only later that we told Chưởng that Dương Tự Trọng had signed it.
Before this, he did not know. He only talked about the investigators. As for the people who tortured him, he remembered their faces and some names; others he recalled only by their appearance. This is what he told us. But he did not know Dương Tự Trọng. He had no recollection of him.
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You called Dương Tự Trọng after he was released from prison. Why?
I wanted to make that call. If he had answered, that would have been good. As the father, as a relative of death row inmate Nguyễn Văn Chưởng, I wanted to call him.
Someone gave me the number; I did not have it myself, so I did not know whether it was correct. But when I called, no one answered. There was a sound, music…but no answer.
Honestly, I called three times. The first two times, there was a sound. The last time, there was no signal.
I did not call to curse at him or insult him. I wanted to talk to him about human decency and how people treat one another in society. I was not calling to beg him or ask him for favors.
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Did you ever hope that, after his release from prison in 2021, Dương Tự Trọng would feel remorse, reconsider, and find a way to clear Chưởng and Đoàn?
I followed him closely during that period because I had filed so many complaints against him. I had been filing complaints against Dương Tự Trọng and Đỗ Hữu Ca since late 2011.
Before calling, I had already considered two possibilities: What would I say if he answered, and what could I do if he did not? If he answered, even if he disagreed with me or reacted in some other way, that would have left a good impression. It would have meant he showed me some respect, and I could take another step toward reaching him. But when he did not answer, I thought he was not a good person.
And frankly, communists typically refuse to admit wrongdoing. You should remember that. I have watched this behavior for years. I was part of that system myself. I defended it, fought for it, and upheld and protected the system. So I say with certainty that communists never admit they are wrong. Even when they are plainly, entirely wrong, they never admit it. That is what I maintain.
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Many people online are mourning Dương Tự Trọng, saying he lived in a way that embodied the spirit of Hải Phòng. You are also from Hải Phòng. What do you think of this assessment?
Speaking as an honest person—not as the father of death row inmate Nguyễn Văn Chưởng, not as someone with a longstanding grievance or hatred toward Dương Tự Trọng—I would say this: Dương Tự Trọng had two faces.
On one side, he was a prominent official, famous for taking down notorious robbers and catching criminals. But whether all that was really true, no one can say for certain.
The other side is that he was a brutal, ruthless, and cruel man. My son’s case shows that. Even before a conviction, they had lost all humanity. They used the cruelest, most despicable, most barbaric methods to force a confession from Nguyễn Văn Chưởng.
They drove two sons, who were the two children from one family—two citizens—down a terribly harsh road and destroyed an entire family. And it was not only my family, but Đỗ Văn Hòa’s family, too. He is serving a life sentence, but he did not do it. This case destroyed several families, two entire extended families.
When he came out of prison, I thought he regretted what he had done. At first, I thought he felt remorse, that he was sorry, and that after prison he was preparing herbal remedies to help people without charging them.
But then I thought about how I had called him twice, three times, and could not reach him. And I sent my complaints every month. Of course they would have reached Dương Tự Trọng and the investigative agencies. He must have known.
So why did he not speak up, set the record straight, or correct his wrongdoing?
This is why I say Dương Tự Trọng had two faces. I do not know which was the true one, but the brutal, ruthless, cruel side was the clearest. This was the clearest side. I say that with certainty.
As for dispensing medicine for free, that was just a way of concealing the wrongdoing within. Once he had left prison, returned home, and become an ordinary citizen, why could he not speak up about the wrongful conviction, help overturn the conviction of Nguyễn Văn Chưởng, or admit his wrongdoing? Or go to the investigation agency and explain what he had done?
Someone with that kind of malice will never admit fault. This was Dương Tự Trọng’s nature. I am certain of it. This was his nature.
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Do you have a message for Dương Tự Trọng’s family?
I would like to say this to his family: He was a colonel, a deputy director, and a very powerful man. His siblings were all in the police. To put it bluntly, they were a family that ruled through police power.
But speaking in terms of human decency, one person to another: I am an ordinary citizen. His family were officials, from the father’s generation to the sons’. All I want to say is that nothing in life lasts forever. Wealth and titles are fleeting. You are alive today; tomorrow you may be gone.
What matters in life is our humanity, and knowing how to value one another. You do not have to love one another, but do not hurt one another. Do not harm anyone.
And I hope his family—they are grieving someone they love, after all—will find some relief from their pain. Life is impermanent. There is no reason to hold on to hatred. Hatred piled upon hatred does not resolve anything. Carrying one hatred into another does no good.
This outcome is not what I want, and it is not what my family wants. I wish his family a return to stability soon. Life is impermanent. I hope they can make the arrangements for Trọng, Dương Tự Trọng, properly.
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Do you plan to attend Dương Tự Trọng’s funeral?
No, I do not.
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.
