Berlin Kidnap Case Hangs Over Rise of Vietnam Enforcer

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To LamPhotographer: Hoang Thong Nhat/VNA/AP Photo
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It was a calm Sunday morning in a park near Berlin’s iconic Victory Column when a sudden loud shriek startled pedestrians. They turned to see a black-haired man being dragged violently into the back of a car.

Trinh Xuan Thanh — former chairman of Vietnam’s state-owned PetroVietnam Construction JSC — was then driven south via Prague to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, according to a German court ruling last year describing the audacious 2017 kidnapping.