Jury Acquits Bombing Suspect, Citing Insanity

A Vietnamese man accused of throwing a firebomb at one of the speakers at a Harvard panel discussion on Victnamese affairs last April was found innocent by reason of insanity last week, in Middlesex Superior Court.

Nguyen Cheu attended the panel discussion in which Vuetbanese specialist Long V. Ngo '68 defended the policies of the current Victnamese government. Testimony showed Chau stepped from behinid a tree and threw a Molotov cocktail at Ngo as he was being escorted to his cur by two Harvard policemen.

The bomb shattered on the windshield without exploding, spraying the policemen with glass fragments and gasoline, but Ngo was uninjured. Police arrested Chau before he could throw a second bomb.

When arrested, Chess said his name was Neghio No and it is Ngo who is named in the indictment.

Chess never denied that he threw the bomb, and defense testimony focused on the horrors he experienced as a South Vietnamese soldier in the Vietnam war and later in North Vietnamese re-education camps.

While in those camps, Cheu witnessed the torture and execution of his friend. Neghio Ngo A psychologist testified that Chau had the most serious case of "Vietnam syndrome" --a catastrophic trauma--that he had ever seen, and said that Chau had assumed the identity of the slain Ngo the night he threw the bomb.

Judge Walter Steele will decide today what treatment Cheu will receive for his mental.