Truong My Lan's life can be saved if he pays three-fourths of the goods he embezzled.
A Vietnamese court has rejected a real estate company's appeal, upholding a death sentence for a $12bn fraud.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City has ruled against Truong My Lan's request in a case that has raised concerns about the impact on the country's economy due to the large amounts of money involved.
The Supreme People's Court ruled that there was no reason to reduce Lan's death sentence, local media reported. However, it also said that the sentence can be changed to life imprisonment if he pays a third of the money.
“The results that Lan created are unprecedented in the history of criminal cases and the amount of money stolen is unprecedented and irreversible,” the prosecutor said during the hearing, according to the state-run VietnamNet newspaper.
“The defendant's actions affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy.”
Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in what was one of Vietnam's biggest financial fraud cases.
He was convicted of embezzling up to $12bn, equivalent to about three percent of the country's 2022 gross domestic product (GDP), and illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).
His arrest in 2022 caused him to run for SCB, one of the largest private banks in the country. About 36,000 people have been identified as victims of this scam, which shocked the communist nation and caused widespread protests.
State media quoted Lan's lawyer as saying he had a number of extenuating circumstances, including “admitting guilt, showing remorse and returning part of the embezzled money”, but prosecutors said that was not enough.
Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam's cassation or retrial procedures.
The 68-year-old suspect is one of the most prominent business executives and government officials arrested in the communist country's long anti-corruption campaign known as the “Bizing Furnace”, which has been raging since 2022, netting dozens of business executives, government officials and members of the organization. police and military.
Source link
