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Vietnamese court may commute billionaire’s death sentence if he repays $11 billion

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Vietnamese Court May Commute Billionaire's Death Sentence If He Repays

A Vietnamese court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of real estate tycoon Truong My Lan, but the sentence will be reduced to life in prison if he repays about $11 billion, three-quarters of the fraud in the country’s biggest financial crime. He said that there is a possibility that .

The scale of the fraud shocked the nation, and analysts questioned whether other banks and companies had committed similar acts. It also worsens Vietnam’s economic outlook and worries foreign investors at a time when Vietnam is establishing itself as a home for companies shifting supply chains away from China.

Mr. Lan, 67, was found guilty in April of embezzlement and bribery of $12.5 billion, equivalent to 3% of gross domestic product. The court found that as chairman of the real estate company Van Tinh Phat, she illegally controlled the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank from 2012 to 2022, authorizing 2,500 loans and causing the bank $27 billion in losses. said.

Ho Chi Minh City’s High Court on Tuesday rejected her appeal against the conviction, but said the death penalty could be commuted to life imprisonment if she compensated for three-quarters of her losses, state media reported.

Her lawyer argued that she had repaid the money, but the court disagreed because some of the properties that were foreclosed as a result of bad debts had legal problems and prosecutors were unable to assess their value. VN Express reported.

Lang’s lawyer also argued that there were some mitigating circumstances, including that Lang had admitted his guilt, shown remorse and repaid some of the amount.

“I am saddened by the waste of national resources,” she said last week, according to state media.

However, the court said her violations had a negative impact on the banking industry, caused public confusion and damaged people’s trust, VN Express reported.

Nguyen Khak Giang, a visiting researcher in the Vietnam Studies Program at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said that under Vietnamese law, the death penalty cannot be carried out immediately, but requires a lengthy legal process. He added that Lan would seek a reconsideration of the case or a presidential pardon to reduce the sentence.

Her arrest was one of the most high-profile cases in Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, which has intensified since 2022. The so-called “Flaming Furnace” movement influenced the highest echelons of Vietnamese politics.

Mr Lan and his family founded Van Tinh Phat in 1992, after Vietnam abolished its state-run economy and adopted a market-oriented approach open to foreigners. The company has grown to become one of Vietnam’s wealthiest real estate companies, with luxury residential buildings, offices, hotels, and shopping centers.

This has made her an important player in the financial industry. She worked with the Central Bank of Vietnam to lead the 2011 merger of the troubled SCB Bank and two other financial institutions. The court said she used this to raise cash from SCB and, according to government documents, owned more than 90% of the bank’s shares while approving thousands of loans to “ghost companies”. . State media said these loans were traced to her and she bribed officials to cover their tracks.

Due to the scale of the crime, the case was split into two trials, and Lan was sentenced to life imprisonment again in October. In that trial, she was accused of illegally issuing bonds through four companies and collecting $1.2 billion from about 36,000 investors, according to state media.

She was also charged with siphoning off $18 billion obtained through fraud and using companies she controlled to illegally transfer more than $4.5 billion into and out of Vietnam between 2012 and 2022. convicted.

Vietnam has handed down more than 2,000 death sentences and executed more than 400 prisoners in the past decade. This sentence can be imposed for 14 crimes, but is usually applied in cases of murder and drug trafficking.

Gozal writes for The Associated Press.

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