Disgraced officials get off lightly as Vietnam businessman gets 20 years
HANOI - Six Vietnamese officials convicted at a graft trial at which a businessman was jailed for 20 years were either
released or sentenced to prison terms of nine months or less, state-run media reported over the weekend.
Planning and investment ministry bureaucrats, Dam Hong and Bui Tuong Luong, escaped with warnings at the
high-profile hearing, the ruling communist party's mouthpiece daily, Nhan Dan (The People), said.
The severest sentence -- a nine-month prison term -- was given to colleague Ngo Chi Thien, while a fourth
planning ministry official, Nguyen Quang Linh, was jailed for six months, the paper said.
Tourism official Pham Dang Cau and planning ministry civil servant Ta Van Ngo were sentenced to
"re-education without detention" for nine and 12 months respectively.
Court officials had declined to divulge the sentences imposed against the civil servants when the week-long trial
closed Friday.
Businessman Le Tan Cuong was jailed for 20 years after being convicted of "fraud" and "theft of state assets"
for his part in the 1999 scandal in which state land earmarked for a now abandoned Hanoi amusement park
project was illegally resold to private developers at grossly inflated prices.
More than 30 government and municipal officials were implicated in the scandal although those above the rank
of departmental director all escaped prosecution.
In November 1999, deputy prime minister Ngo Xuan Loc became the most senior official ever to be dismissed
from office for his part in the affair.
Hanoi deputy mayor Dinh Hanh was also sacked over the scandal the following month.
The authorities gave Loc a new job as special adviser to the government just five months after dismissing him,
sparking widespread cynicism.
The job, which has cabinet rank, gave him responsibility for the same property sector which led to the original
accusations against him.
Even the communist authorities admit that corruption has become a widespread problem in party and
government ranks.
Anger over the problem sparked an unprecedented wave of rural unrest in 1997 in which tens of thousands of
peasant farmers attacked police and government officials in Thai Binh province in the north and Dong Nai in the
south.
The months-long unrest amid a section of the population traditionally regarded as the party's bedrock support
jolted the authorities.
Agence France Presse - September 16, 2001.
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