BANGKOK, Dec 25 — A Thai court today sentenced a prominent Vietnamese hill tribe activist to six months in prison for illegally entering the kingdom and staying without a visa, his lawyer told AFP.

Judges in Bangkok ruled in September that Y Quynh Bdap — who has lived in exile in Thailand since 2018 — could be extradited to Vietnam, where he was convicted in absentia on terrorism-related charges.

Bdap was accused of remotely orchestrating attacks in June 2023 in which gunmen on motorbikes opened fire on two police posts in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, killing nine people in a rare act of violence against the communist authorities. He has denied the allegations against him.

A Thai court today sentenced him to six months in prison and fined him 6,000 baht (US$175) for entering and staying in the kingdom while lacking proper travel documents, his lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman said.

The court’s decision said that Bdap’s status as a refugee, "does not exempt him from complying with the Thai law,” she told AFP.

"When you are a refugee, obtaining a passport and visa is not your first priority,” she added.

"This ruling proves that Thai law does not consider the safety of political refugee.”

Bdap has been granted refugee status by the United Nations and will remain in prison in Bangkok while his legal team prepares an appeal against his extradition.

UN-affiliated experts have warned that Bdap would be at risk of "torture or other ill-treatment or punishment” if sent back to Vietnam.

Police blamed the 2023 attacks on Montagnards Stand for Justice (MSFJ), a group pushing for freedom of religion for Vietnam’s hill tribes and ethnic minority groups that has been branded as "terrorist” by the authorities.

The country’s government sentenced almost 100 people in January in relation to the 2023 attacks in Dak Lak province, accusing them of seeking to "overthrow the state”.

All were from ethnic minority groups indigenous to Vietnam’s Central Highlands.

Montagnards—the collective name for various tribes in the area—sided with the US-backed south during Vietnam’s decades-long war.

Some are also calling for more autonomy, while others abroad advocate independence for the region. — AFP