Laos

Federal prosecutors dropped charges Friday against Vang Pao, the exiled Hmong general accused two years ago of plotting with a band of aging Central Valley expatriates to overthrow the communist regime in their homeland of Laos. Vang Pao, 79, had been singled out as the alleged ringleader of the bizarre scheme to launch a coup -- reputedly with mercenaries armed with AK-47 assault rifles and Stinger missiles -- in the summer of 2007. Although prosecutors filed motions abandoning charges against the general, one of America's staunchest allies during the Vietnam War, they maintained the counts against a dozen of his alleged comrades and added new ones.

He seems more fable than flesh and blood, a general who marched with serendipity at his side. Wartime comrades say he walked away from downed aircraft, defied bullets and dodged artillery shells. Once, the story goes, a barrage of bombs landed around him and not one exploded. Even in defeat, Gen. Vang Pao of the Royal Lao Army consistently beat the odds. After the communists conquered his homeland in 1975, he fled with six wives and more than 20 children to the U.S.

A retired California National Guard lieutenant colonel and a prominent Hmong leader were charged with eight others Monday in an alleged plot to buy missiles, mines, assault rifles and other arms to topple the communist government of Laos. Among those arrested was Gen. Vang Pao of Westminster, a CIA-backed ally of the United States during the Vietnam War and a leader among Hmong refugees who settled in the state 30 years ago. Also named in a federal complaint was former Lt. Col.

Vang Pao, a key figure among those arrested Monday on suspicion of plotting the overthrow of the communist Laotian government, is so well-known in the local Hmong community that his family always keeps fruit, soda and water on the living room coffee table to greet the constant stream of visitors who drop by his Westminster home.

It's been decades since Gen. Vang Pao saw combat, but many in the sizable Hmong community here still reverently refer to him as "the General." Straining to explain to outsiders how shaken they were by Tuesday headlines, some likened Pao to a wise uncle, a godfather, to Colin Powell, even Abraham Lincoln.

A former National Guard lieutenant colonel and Hmong leaders met in March with California Highway Patrol officials to try to get law enforcement training for participants in an alleged plot to overthrow the Laotian government, according to court records. The CHP acknowledged Tuesday that retired Lt. Col. Harrison Ulrich Jack and Hmong community leaders toured the sprawling West Sacramento training academy as part of what the agency saw as an effort to boost the hiring of Asian Americans.

A federal judge Thursday ordered four Hmong elders from the Central Valley to remain in jail while they await trial in what prosecutors allege was a plot to violently overthrow the communist government of Laos. The four are among 10 suspects the U.S. attorney's office says formed an elaborate plan to begin sending mercenaries and nearly $10 million in weapons to Laos as soon as next week.

Federal agents Thursday arrested an 11th suspect allegedly connected to a plot to topple the communist government of Laos. Dang Vang, 48, was arrested at his Fresno home and later made an appearance in federal court in Sacramento. Meanwhile, a federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment alleging that the 11 men conspired to purchase hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles, missiles and other military hardware they planned to use in the coup.

Thousands of Hmong took to the streets here Monday to protest the incarceration of a revered former military leader and 10 other men accused of plotting the armed overthrow of the communist regime in Laos. Throngs of older expatriates from the war-torn Southeast Asian nation and their U.S.-reared offspring rallied in front of the state Capitol and later ringed the federal courthouse, where Laotian Gen. Vang Pao and his alleged accomplices pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment.

Eleven men charged with trying to overthrow the communist government of Laos should be freed while awaiting trial because their plan was so amateurish that they posed no danger to anybody, defense attorneys argue in new court documents. Attorneys for the men say much of the plot was encouraged by an undercover government agent posing as an arms dealer.