Glitter trial 'unique'
2006-03-02 12:19
Story: Vung Tau - Communist Vietnam has never seen scenes like it - dozens of foreign reporters, TV cameramen and photographers engulfing a defendant outside a courthouse.
Normally, trials in the southeast Asian nation are conducted in secret, the verdict and sentence announced in the official newspapers or on state-run television.
But for Thursday's trial of British glam rocker Gary Glitter on child molestation charges, authorities are breaking new ground in transparency and openness, trying to demonstrate to the world that Vietnam is a wholesome family-oriented tourist destination.
In a series of firsts, foreign reporters have been briefed on court proceedings and invited into the courthouse compound to photograph and question the 61-year-old on his arrival and departure from the one-day hearing.
They will also be allowed into the courtroom itself for the verdict, due to be handed down at 10 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Friday. Glitter denies the charges, and insists he was just teaching the girls English.
At its opening, the trial produced chaotic scenes as baton-wielding but nervous police failed to contain the media pack, who surged towards Glitter as he emerged for a dark green prison van.
Glitter is still slender, but former his bouffant locks have thinned and greyed and were hidden beneath a black baseball cap. A long goatee protruded from his chin.
But he appeared to be enjoying the attention, turning swiftly to face the reporters and photographers - many of whom could have been teenage fans at the height of his fame - when they called out his name.
The black-clad rock star, jailed for child pornography offences in Britain in 1999, was jostled in the scrum and at least one photographer was knocked down as Glitter was pushed up a flight of steps to the courtroom.
"I have never seen anything like this," said 36-year-old housewife Phan Thi Ngoc Anh, who was standing outside the yellow concrete court house in Vung Tau, a resort town 120 km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
"At first I thought there was a ceremony to inaugurate the nice new building and I thought all the foreign reporters had come to cover the good news," she said, her face shielded from the searing tropical sun by a conical straw hat.
There is also confusion as to the precise age of the two girls who prosecutors say were Glitter's victims.
One government official told a news conference the two were aged 13 and under 13 "when they were victimised". However, dates of birth given out by other officials suggest they are now aged only 12 and 11.
In much of Asia, people are deemed to be aged one the day they are born and two a year later.
By whichever yardstick, they are both below the age of sexual consent, which is 16 in Vietnam.
There are worries among the travelling press, some of whom have pursued Glitter in Cuba and Cambodia since his release from a British prison in early 2000, that people might get hurt in a courtroom scrum when the verdict is announced.
"They're going to have to sort out something, because otherwise that furniture is going to be matchwood," said one tabloid reporter.