“Following ever‑greater evidence and now no reasonable grounds to doubt that the Vietnamese agencies and the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam in Berlin were involved in the abduction of a Vietnamese citizen in Berlin, Markus Ederer, State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office, summoned the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam yesterday.

The abduction of Vietnamese citizen Trinh Xuan Thanh on German territory is an unprecedented and blatant violation of German and international law.

The incident came to light thanks to the alertness of the German law enforcement agencies. The law enforcement agencies in Berlin are now also investigating the case.

An incident of this kind has the potential to affect relations between Germany and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam in a very adverse way. It is also an extreme breach of trust – on the margins of the G20 Summit, high‑level representatives of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam reiterated the request to extradite this Vietnamese citizen from Germany to Viet Nam.

Markus Ederer, State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office, expressed the German Government’s views on this in no uncertain terms to the Vietnamese Ambassador yesterday. He made it abundantly clear to the Ambassador that the German Government demands that Trinh Xuan Thanh be allowed to travel back to Germany immediately so that the application for extradition and the asylum application can be examined in full under due process.

As a consequence of this wholly unacceptable incident, the official representative of the Vietnamese intelligence agencies at the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam in Germany has been declared persona non grata and given 48 hours to leave Germany.

We also reserve the right to take further steps as required at the political, economic and development policy level.”