Three guilty of killing immigrant

Guilty: L-R - Thanh Van Le, Cong Van Le, and Quynh Van Huynh

How police cracked killer mystery

Battered man's desperate journey

Three Vietnamese men have been found guilty of killing a fellow immigrant beaten and left dying at a hospital.

After a four-month trial Thanh Van Le, 31, Cong Van Le, 48, Quynh Van Huynh, 51, were cleared of murder but guilty of manslaughter at Cardiff Crown Court.

Three other men - Bac Phoung Nguyen, 30, Son Van Nhu, 24, and Paul Harrison, 37 - were acquitted of all charges.

Tran Nguyen, 44, was beaten in London before being taken back to south Wales, and left in A&E at a Newport hospital.

During the trial, the jury was told that Mr Nguyen was suspected of taking part in a raid by rivals on a cannabis factory in Newport.

The jury of five women and seven men were sent out eight days ago and the judge told them on Monday they could return a majority verdict.

Harrison, who had told the court he worked as "protection" for American rappers Eminem and The Game, was heard shouting "yes, yes" and "free" after being cleared of the charges and released from the dock.

After the verdicts were announced, the court heard that Thanh Van Le and Cong Van Le are to be deported.

The two Vietnamese men cleared of any charges - Mr Phoung Nguyen and Mr Nhu - have also been detained because they are illegal immigrants and will be deported.

Sentence of the three found guilty was adjourned until Monday, 11 August.

Cannabis plantation

Mr Nguyen died in November 2006, two months after arriving in the UK in the back of a lorry.

The court heard that it was not until a month after dying that police discovered Mr Nguyen's identity, when his brother-in-law went to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport looking for him.

The prosecution claimed that Mr Nguyen, an illegal immigrant, was at the cannabis plantation at a property in Newport when it was raided by rivals, who tied him up and stole the crop of drug.

They said his gangmaster suspected he may have had a role in the theft and was taken to a house in London where he was beaten up.

Mr Nguyen, a father-of-two, was then driven back to Newport where he was then dumped unresponsive and unconscious at the hospital.

Thanh Van Le, 31, Son Van Nhu, 24, Cong Van Le, 48, all of Feltham, Middlesex, Quynh Van Huynh, 51, and Paul Harrison, 37, both of London, and Bac Phoung Nguyen, 30, of no fixed abode, had all denied murder.