Police in Hanoi’s Tay Ho District are looking for a 52-year-old foreign man suspected of setting a local woman on fire.
The manhunt was launched following reports that the victim, a 34-year-old tailor shop owner, had been severely injured by gasoline fire while in her shop on Dang Thai Mai Street on Monday.
This camera footage shows the foreign man holding a can of liquid while inside the victim's shop. |
Police identified the foreigner, whose name and nationality have not been revealed, as the suspect after camera footage showed him riding a motorbike near the shop while wearing a face mask and carrying a can of liquid. He was then seen leaving the scene just as the victim and the shop’s furnitures started burning.
Expat Alan Nicholls, who was in the tailor shop with his wife told the Mail Online "it was the most shocking thing I've ever seen."
"This guy came into the shop, wearing a face mask, and threw petrol over the woman and the rest of the shop and set her on fire. It's rocked the local community to its core."
The victim is being treated at Saint Paul's Hospital and has yet to regain consciousness. She suffered burns to 70 percent of her body, according to doctors.
“Since arriving here, she’s still unconscious so I have not been able to ask her what had happened,” said Hoa, the victim’s mother.
Hoa, who has only been in Hanoi to take care of her daughter since Tuesday, said she wasn't aware that the victim had any foreign acquaintances as suggested by her neighbors. According to Hoa, her daughter is already married.