'Montagnards killed by injection'

'Montagnards killed by injection'

VIETNAM: Three ethnic minority Christians in Vietnam's Central Highlands, the scene of widespread unrest last year, have been killed by police who injected them with poison, a U.S.-based organization said on Thursday.

The Montagnard Foundation said the three men, Y-Suon Mlo, Y- Het Nie Kdam and Y-Wan Ayun, who were arrested in February last year, died from the lethal injection administered in police custody on Oct. 29 in Dak Lak province.

The claims could not be independently verified and Vietnam's communist government denied the allegations.

The ethnic minority exile group appealed to the international community to put pressure on Vietnam to allow human rights monitors into the Central Highlands, which remains largely closed to outsiders since last year's protests. --AFP