Free Republic

~snip~ Where the accounts differ most starkly is in the period of Mr McCain’s long incarceration as a PoW – first at the prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, then at The Plantation. Tran Trong Duyet, the former prison director who now surrounds himself with caged birds in a house in Hai Phong, first met Mr McCain a year after he had been shot down. He recalls a defiant rule-breaker, the patriotic son of an admiral and a fervent believer in the war. What he does not recall, however, is a victim of torture or violence. “I never tortured or...

John McCain has won an unusual endorsement for his presidential campaign - from the man who was his jailer in wartime Vietnam. John McCain was shot down and badly wounded while bombing a Hanoi power station on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam in 1967. He was a prisoner for over five years. Because Mr McCain's father was commander of all American forces in the Pacific theatre, the Vietnamese called him "the prince". Tran Trong Duyet, the commandant of Hao Lo prison in Hanoi from 1968-73, recalls Mr McCain "as a typical child of a traditional military family. He was...

John McCain has fielded the unlikeliest of endorsements -- from his former captor in the Vietnam War. Tran Trong Duyet, who was in charge of the so-called "Hanoi Hilton" where McCain was imprisoned for more than five years after his plane was shot down in 1967, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that he now considers McCain his "friend" and that if he had the chance he would vote for him for president. "If I were American, I'd vote for John McCain," Duyet, now 75, told the BBC. "I think he'd make a very capable president. He's done so much to...

<p>REPUBLICAN US presidential candidate John McCain has got some unexpected support from his former Vietnam War jailer, who said he would vote for the former navy pilot if he could.</p> <p>Speaking to the BBC from Haiphong, Tran Trong Duyet also insisted that Senator McCain's assertions that he was tortured during his time at the prison were lies, and that no one held there was ever subjected to torture.</p>

Tran Trong Duyet - a sprightly retiree and amateur ballroom dancer - must rank as one of John McCain's more unlikely supporters.Four decades ago, during the Vietnam war, Mr Duyet was in charge of the notorious Hoa Lo prison - the place where Mr McCain says he was brutally beaten and tortured during five-and-a-half years as an American prisoner of war. "McCain is my friend," said 75-year-old Mr Duyet as he feeds the caged birds he now keeps in his garden in this coastal city. "If I was American, I would vote for him." Informal chatsNavy pilot John McCain was...