Legal consequences of threatening to burn the wife with gasoline in Vietnam

Typically in Judgment 354/2017/HSST dated November 13, 2017 on the crime of threatening to kill, with the following contents:

"Vu Van L and Ms. Le Thi Ch are husband and wife but living separately. Around 12 o'clock on August 8, 2017, Vu Van went to Ms. Ch's place at 1903A, Helios building, 75 Tam Trinh, Mai Dong, Hoang Mai, Hanoi asked Ms. Ch to return to live with L, but Ms. Ch did not listen, at the same time sent L away and closed the door of the room.

At about 6 pm on the same day, L had an intention to buy gasoline to threaten to kill Ms. L, so he spent 5,000 VND to get about 300ml of gasoline in a bottle of lavie water. When he arrived at Ms. Ch's house, he saw that Ms. Ch was doing her nails for customers, L went to Ms. Ch's place and put her hand inside her shirt to threaten to pour gasoline on her. Ms. Ch thought that L pulled out a knife to stab her, so she was afraid and ran into the bedroom.

At this time, L stood outside cursing and threatening Ms. Ch, and at the same time poured about 1/3 of a bottle of gasoline into the door of the room threatening to burn it. After being stopped by everyone, L took the remaining gasoline bottle and left.

In addition, from the beginning of July 2017, L went to Ms. Ch's place 05 times to curse and threaten to kill her. L also used the phone to text her threatening to kill her like: "Tonight I will burn your room down, if you go to the police, you have to bear the consequences", "you put me in the dead end, you will take a gas bath, I hope you will feel the fire burning on you, you will have to go out, the whole area will burn." The fact that she was threatened with such mental terror by L made her live in fear, fearing that she would be killed by L".

The trial panel found L guilty of "threat to kill" with a sentence of 12 (twelve) months in prison.

Compared with the provisions of law, in Clause 1, Article 290 of the 1999 Penal Code, the crime of threatening to kill is as follows:

Article 103. Threatening to murder

1. Those who threaten to kill other persons, in circumstances such as to make the latter believe that such threat shall be realized, shall be subject to non-custodial reform for up to two years or sentenced to between three months’ and three years of imprisonment.

2. Any person who commits such crime in one of the following circumstances shall be sentenced to between two and seven years of imprisonment:

a) Against more than one person;

b) Against persons who are performing their official duties or for reasons related to the victims’ official duties;

c) Against children;

d) To conceal or shirk the handling of another crime.

It can be seen that it is not only when there is an act of murder that one is punished by the law, but the criminal law also stipulates the penalty for the act of threatening to kill when there are grounds to make the threatened person fear that the threat will be carried out.

Therefore, when there is a conflict with another person, no matter how angry or angry, each person should keep his or her rationality to avoid thoughtless actions such as threatening to kill others. Don't let yourself do wrong things for a minute and pay the price by living in prison.