The Đắk Nông Land-Dispute Shooting

A long-running land dispute

The case arose from a dispute in Quảng Trực Commune, Tuy Đức District, involving land used by farming families and land assigned to Long Sơn Company for a forestry project. Vietnamese court reporting described years of conflict between the company and local cultivators.

On October 23, 2016, a group of company workers and security personnel entered disputed farmland with machinery. Courts later found that company personnel destroyed cashew and coffee trees belonging to local residents. That conduct became the basis of separate property-destruction convictions.

The shooting

During the confrontation, Đặng Văn Hiến used a firearm against the company group. Three people were killed and thirteen others were injured. Two other farmers, Ninh Viết Bình and Hà Văn Trường, were also prosecuted for their roles in the violence.

Hiến fled after the shooting and later surrendered. The criminal proceedings addressed both the fatal gunfire and the property destruction that preceded it, but the defendants were not all charged with the same offenses.

First-instance convictions

In January 2018, the Đắk Nông People's Court convicted Hiến of murder and sentenced him to death. Bình and Trường were also convicted of murder and received lengthy prison terms. Other defendants received separate sentences for concealing crime or destroying property.

The case drew public attention because of the circumstances of the land dispute and because relatives of some victims asked that Hiến's death sentence be reduced. Those requests did not erase the murder conviction.

Appeal upheld

On July 12, 2018, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City rejected Hiến's appeal and upheld the death sentence, concluding that the consequences of the shooting were exceptionally serious. The appellate court reduced some sentences imposed on other defendants.

Subsequent petitions asked the President to commute Hiến's punishment. These were clemency requests, not new findings that overturned the murder conviction.

Death sentence commuted

On August 31, 2022, the President of Vietnam issued Decision No. 980/QĐ-CTN commuting Hiến's death sentence to life imprisonment. The decision was formally announced to him in Đắk Nông on September 16, 2022.

The current sourced legal status is therefore clear: Hiến remains convicted of murder, but the capital sentence was replaced by life imprisonment. Crime by Region classifies the file as Solved / Adjudicated.