SF Mass Murder Suspect Dodged Deportation

The man accused of the brutal murder of five people in San Francisco was only in America because his native Vietnam refused to take him back, the San Francisco Chronicle finds. After Binh Thai Luc served nearly a decade in prison for the 1996 robbery of a Chinese restaurant in San Jose, he was ordered deported in 2006. But Vietnam refused to provide travel documents, and he was released in the US under the terms of a 2001 Supreme Court ruling.

The controversial ruling states that undocumented immigrants must be released within six months if their country of origin won't take them back. Luc, 35, continued to report to federal immigration authorities after his release, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. "Unfortunately, there are some countries that are very difficult to remove people to, and Vietnam is one of those countries," he says. "We had to follow the ruling." (More Binh Thai Luc stories.)