Seven people, including at least one US citizen, will be prosecuted on charges of plotting violence against Vietnam's communist government, officials said on Thursday.
Prosecutors charged a Vietnamese-born US citizen whose detention for more than a year has drawn attention in the United States before President George W. Bush's visit to Vietnam November 17-20.
"The Supreme People's Procuracy has asked the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court to bring to court seven defendants involved in a terrorism case," a statement carried by the official Vietnam News Agency said.
It said the seven accused included US citizen Nguyen Thuong Cuc (alias Foshee Thuong Nguyen) of Orlando, Florida, who was arrested on September 10 last year.
Three of those charged were listed as having addresses in the United States, but it could not be immediately confirmed whether they were also US passport holders.
The statement linked the seven to a Vietnamese-born resident of the United States, Nguyen Huu Chanh, who was suspected of plotting to bomb Vietnam embassies in several countries in recent years.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said in a separate statement that Foshee, 58, was held "for allegedly being involved in terrorist activities, but has not been brought to trial".
A US Embassy spokeswoman in Vietnami capital of Hanoi said consular officials had visited Foshee, who was being held in Ho Chi Minh City.
"We want her to be treated equitably and appropriately under Vietnamese law and we want to continue doing what we have been doing for her and her family," she said. Chanh, the accused ringleader, was detained in South Korea in the past year following a request by Vietnam to arrest and extradite him. Chanh is a member of a US-based group called "Government of Free Vietnam".
The government statement said that "in order to carry out the plot, Nguyen Huu Chanh and his accomplices stopped at nothing, including terrorist bombing and using radio broadcasts to call for an uprising and then to stir unrest and upset the lives of cadres, public employees and ordinary people".
Security and anti-terrorism are major issues for leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in the Vietnamese capital during the week of November 12-19. The group includes the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
Earlier this week, the foreign ministry spokesman said Vietnam was "considering the possibility of abolishing" a 1997 decree that allows for detention without trial and has been used by Hanoi to detain people opposed to one-party rule.