Vietnam court upholds tycoon’s death sentence for $12bn bank fraud

Truong My Lan’s beingness could inactive beryllium spared if she pays backmost three-quarters of the assets she embezzled.

A Vietnamese tribunal has rejected a existent property tycoon’s appeal, upholding the decease condemnation handed down for the embezzlement of $12bn.

The tribunal successful Ho Chi Minh City ruled against Truong My Lan’s entreaty successful the case, which has raised concerns implicit the interaction connected the country’s system owed to the immense sums involved.

The High People’s Court determined determination was nary ground to trim Lan’s decease sentence, section media reported. However, it besides said that the condemnation could beryllium commuted to beingness imprisonment should she repay three-quarters of the money.

“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented successful the past of litigation and the magnitude of wealth embezzled is unprecedentedly ample and unrecoverable,” the prosecution said astatine the entreaty hearing, according to state-run online paper VietnamNet.

“The defendant’s actions person affected galore aspects of society, the fiscal market, the economy.”

Lan, the chairwoman of existent property developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to decease successful April for her relation successful what was Vietnam’s biggest fiscal fraud lawsuit connected record.

She is convicted of orchestrating fiscal fraud amounting to $12bn, equalling astir 3 percent of the country’s 2022 gross home merchandise (GDP), and for illegally controlling the Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).

Her apprehension successful 2022 prompted a tally connected SCB, 1 of the country’s largest backstage banks. About 36,000 radical person been identified arsenic victims of the fraud, which shocked the communist federation and prompted uncommon protests.

State media cited Lan’s lawyer arsenic saying she had galore mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying backmost portion of the magnitude of wealth embezzled”, but prosecutors said that was insufficient.

Lan inactive has the close to petition a reappraisal nether Vietnam’s cassation oregon retrial procedures.

The 68-year-old is 1 of the astir celebrated concern executives and authorities officials jailed successful the communist country’s lengthy anticorruption run known arsenic “Blazing Furnace”, which has intensified since 2022, netting a fig of concern executives, authorities officials and members of the constabulary and equipped forces.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies