~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

Year :     [2007]      [2006]      [2005]      [2004]      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

Vietnam ex-deputy minister faces verdict over textile scam

HANOI - A verdict was expected Friday in the trial of Vietnam's former deputy trade minister for accepting bribes for quotas to export textiles. Prosecutors have demanded 10 to 12 years' jail for Mai Van Dau if found guilty by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court of taking a total of 6,000 dollars in bribes from garment companies in 2003 and 2004.

The trial of 14 people in total is the first of several major corruption cases to come to court after Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung took office last year vowing to crack down on endemic corruption. Dau, 64, was in charge of allocating quotas under the now-defunct Vietnam-US Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, while his son Mai Thanh Hai, 34, a trade ministry official, allegedly acted as a mediator in selling them. In the nine-day trial, the former deputy minister, who has been in jail since November 2004, retracted an earlier admission that he took bribes, claiming he confessed only after police promised him medical parole.

Prosecutors have also asked that his son Hai be jailed for four to six years for using his fatherÂ?s influence to gain 35,000 dollars from garment companies, plus one to two years more for faking his university diploma. Textiles are Vietnam's largest export after oil, but shipments to the United States were capped at the time through quotas as Washington sought to protect its garment industry from cheap imports. The quota system has now been abolished. Vietnam joined the World Trade Organisation in January, allowing producers in the Southeast Asian country open access to the US market. Prosecutors also demanded 14 to 16 years' jail for Le Van Thang, former deputy head of the Trade MinistryÂ?s import-export department, for allegedly accepting a bribe of 18,000 dollars, according to state media reports. They asked for 8 to 10 years' jail for Ho Chi Minh City official Nguyen Cuong, and 10 to 12 years' prison time for Bui Van Tuan, former head of Tomotake Vietnam Company Limited, for allegedly brokering bribes. Prosecutors also asked for six to eight years' jail each for businessmen who allegedly paid the bribes, Chinese national Lai Wai Hung of Sundance Company Limited and Tran Thi Thu Lan of the Asian Trade and Garment Company Limited.

Vietnam expects more corruption trials this year after police recently wrapped up probes into graft involving the state-run Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation and an infrastructure unit of the transport ministry.

Agence France Presse - March 23, 2007.