Vietnamese Authorities Seek Death Penalty For College Student Who Committed Valentine's Day Killing

November 19, 2009 9:46 a.m. EST

Hanoi, Vietnam (AHN) - Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a college student who confessed to slitting her wealthy ex-boyfriend's throat with a fruit knife on Valentine's Day. The trial is slated to begin next month.

Authorities filed murder charges on Wednesday against fourth-year student, Vu Kim Anh. The 22-year-old who attended the Hanoi Pedagogical University, confessed to murdering Nguyen Tien Chinh, 42, on February 14 early in the morning. Reportedly the couple sat in his parked Lexus sports utility vehicle on a Hanoi street something transpired and he wound up dead. When the case broke many people had sympathized with the student because her defense in killing was that Chinh had tried to rape her.

However, it soon became known that Chinh, the chief executive of a mining company, allegedly hid the fact he was married from his young lover during the course of their affair, which began in April 2006. When she learned the news she ended the relationship. But Chinh asked for one more meeting by threatening to tell Anh's new boyfriend about their previous affair.

It is then that police say Anh met Chinh and cut his throat with a fruit knife inside his parked Lexus. She then fled the scene and hid out at her boyfriend's home where police arrested her a week later.

Under Vietnamese law, murder is punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison, life imprisonment or capital punishment, depending on the gravity of the case.