Vietnam rejects leniency pleas for two former officials in biggest corruption trial
HANOI - Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong has
rejected leniency pleas from two former executives sentenced to
death in the communist country's biggest corruption trial,
state-controlled media reported Wednesday.
Tang Minh Phung, former director of one of Vietnam's once largest
private companies, and Pham Nhat Hong, former director of the
state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of Vietnam in Ho Chi
Minh City, had their pleas rejected by the president in recent
decisions, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.
Phung, Hong and four others were sentenced to death in 1999
following a highly publicized corruption trial. It is unclear whether
the others requested leniency, and the president's office declined
comment.
In Vietnam, it can take years for condemned prisoners to be
executed by firing squad, and it was unclear when the two would be
put to death.
All 77 defendants in the case, including 18 bank executives, were
convicted for involvement in a graft scam to appropriate state
property.
Two companies established a network of 47 front companies to
obtain huge bank loans with phantom collateral with help from
corrupt bank executives.
The money was used for land deals, but they went sour in the
mid-1990s during a freeze in the local real estate market, forcing
the companies to default on the loans. Those involved were
arrested in March 1997.
More than $280 million is believed to have been lost in the scam,
most borne by two major state-owned banks, the Ho Chi Minh city
branches of Industrial and Commercial Bank of Vietnam (Incombank)
and Vietcombank.
The Associated Press - May 7, 2003.
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