Senior Vietnamese officials shot dead

By Bennett Murray

HANOI

A pair of Vietnamese Communist Party officials were killed Thursday morning in an unprecedented murder and suicide carried out by a colleague.

Pham Duy Cuong, the Communist Party chief for Yen Bai province and member of the party’s governing Central Committee, was killed along with Ngo Ngoc Tuan, chairman of the provincial People’s Council.

The suspect, who shot himself at the scene and later died in hospital, was Do Cuong Minh, a forest ranger and head of the province’s Department for Forest Management.

Minh reportedly shot Cuong in his office with his service pistol, which are regularly issued to forest rangers in Vietnam, before moving to Tuan's.

Pham Thi Thanh Tra, chairman of Yen Bai Provincial Committee, said at a press conference that Minh most likely suffered from a "psychological problem".

Murders of politicians are unheard of in Vietnam, where the Communist Party has enjoyed a monopoly on power since the country’s reunification in 1975.

“Such an incident has never happened in our country,” said Tra.