Two of the 29 accused in the case of the fatal Dong Tam land dispute in Vietnam have been sentenced to death.

The rest of those on trial were given sentences ranging from life imprisonment to 15 months suspended.

Police entered the village of Dong Tam in January to secure construction of a fence around land seized to protect an airport but were met with resistance.

The resulting clashes left three policeman and one retired local official dead.

In January 2020, police arrived in the village to help secure the area as the army built a boundary wall around land annexed by the defence ministry around the Mieu Mon airport.

The land was subject to a dispute with villagers, who said they had not been properly recompensed for its seizure by the government.

According to authorities, a group of residents led by Le Dinh Kinh, a retired local official, violently resisted the police, and three officers - Col Nguyen Huy Thinh, Cpt Pham Cong Huy and Lt Duong Duc Hoang Quan - were set on fire and burned to death.

In January 2020, police arrived in the village to help secure the area as the army built a boundary wall around land annexed by the defence ministry around the Mieu Mon airport.

The land was subject to a dispute with villagers, who said they had not been properly recompensed for its seizure by the government.

According to authorities, a group of residents led by Le Dinh Kinh, a retired local official, violently resisted the police, and three officers - Col Nguyen Huy Thinh, Cpt Pham Cong Huy and Lt Duong Duc Hoang Quan - were set on fire and burned to death.

The dispute began about three years ago when the Vietnamese military began work on an airport at Mieu Mon, close to Dong Tam village.

Residents complained that about 50 hectares (124 acres) of their land had been unfairly taken over and handed to Viettel Group, Vietnam's military-run communications company.

All land in communist Vietnam is owned by the state, so the government can technically use what it wants for military or civilian purposes. But locals protested that they had not been properly compensated for the seized land, and resisted the attempt to take it.

The dispute first came to wider public attention in 2017, when four people were arrested for "disturbing public order" in protests against the land acquisition.

Villagers retaliated by holding 38 officials, including police officers, inside a community house for about a week. They were eventually released after the authorities agreed some concessions.