BERLIN, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Germany on Wednesday accused Vietnam of kidnapping a Vietnamese asylum seeker in Berlin and ordered a Vietnamese intelligence officer to leave the country within 48 hours.
German Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the abduction of Vietnamese citizen Trinh Xuan Thanh on German territory is "an unprecedented and blatant violation of German and international law."
An incident of this kind has the potential to affect relations between Germany and Vietnam in a very adverse way. It is also an extreme breach of trust, the statement said.
The Vietnamese ambassador had been summoned on Tuesday afternoon, and Markus Ederer, state secretary of German Foreign Ministry, expressed the German government's views on this in no uncertain terms.
Germany 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 due process.
The official representative of the Vietnamese intelligence agencies at the Vietnamese Embassy in Berlin has been declared persona non grata and given 48 hours to leave Germany.
The 51-year-old Thanh was former head of the state-owned Petro Vietnam Construction Corporation, and was accused of causing about 150 million U.S. dollars in losses.
The Vietnamese government issued an international arrest warrant for him in September.
German media said the asylum seeker kidnapped by armed men in the center of Berlin resurfaced on Monday in Vietnam, where state-owned newspapers reported that he had turned himself into authorities.
So far, Vietnam has not responded to Germany's expulsion of its diplomat.
