Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém

Nguyễn Văn Lém (1931 or 1932 – 1 February 1968), referred to as Captain Bảy Lốp or Ew Tu, was a member of the National Liberation Front, responsible for killing the wife and six children of a South Vietnamese military officer Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuan. Lém was later captured and summarily executed in Saigon by General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams. The execution was explained at the time as being the consequence of Lém’s admitted guerrilla activity and war crimes, and otherwise due to a general "wartime mentality".

Biography
On the second day of the Tết Offensive, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police. Using his personal .38 revolver, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams and NBC television cameraman Vo Suu. The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement; Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.

South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Cong insurgent team, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families. Corroborating this, Lém was captured at the site of a mass grave that included the bodies of at least seven police family members. Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the National Liberation Front and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began.

Around 4:30 A.M., Lém led a sabotage unit along with Viet Cong tanks to attack the Armor Camp in Go Vap. After communist troops took control of the base, Lém arrested Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tuan with his family and forced him to show them how to drive tanks. When Lieutenant Colonel Tuan refused to cooperate, Lém killed Tuan, his wife and six children and his 80-year-old mother by cutting their throats. There was only one survivor, a seriously injured 10-year-old boy.

Lém was captured near a mass grave with 34 civilian bodies. Lém admitted that he was proud to carry out his unit leader's order to kill these people. Having personally witnessed the murder of one of his officers along with that man's wife and three small children in cold blood, when Lém was captured and brought to him, General Loan summarily executed him using his sidearm, a .38 Special Smith & Wesson Model 38 "Bodyguard" revolver, in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News television cameraman Vo Suu. The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement.

The execution appalled many people, and was clearly illegal as summary executions of prisoners without any trial are banned. As he appeared in the photo and footage, "Lem was in his shorts and shirt", and was not marked by any identifiable marker showing that he was a legal combatant.

Military lawyers have not agreed whether Loan's action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Lém had not been wearing a proper uniform; nor was he, it is alleged, fighting enemy soldiers at the time), where POW status was granted independently of the laws of war; it was limited to National Liberation Front seized during military operations.