Germany charges Vietnamese linked to 2017 kidnapping case

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s federal prosecutor says a man suspected in the 2017 kidnapping of a former Vietnamese oil executive in Berlin has been charged with aiding and abetting the abduction. The prosecutors office said Thursday that the executive, Trinh Xuan Thanh, and a companion were forcibly dragged into a van on a Berlin street. It says Thanh was taken against his will to Vietnam, where he was sentenced to life in prison for corruption. German authorities allege employees of the Vietnamese secret service, officials of the Vietnamese Embassy in Berlin, and several Vietnamese nationals living in Europe carried out the kidnapping. The detained suspect was identified only as Anh T.L.