Hanoi, Vietnam
Reuters
—
A court docket in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a dying sentence for actual property tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her attraction towards a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported.
Lan, the chairwoman of actual property developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to dying in April for her function in Vietnam’s largest monetary fraud case on document.
The High People’s Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City decided there was no foundation to cut back Lan’s dying sentence, reported on-line newspaper VnExpress.
If Lan is ready to return three-quarters of the cash embezzled whereas on dying row, it’s doable the sentence could possibly be commuted to life imprisonment, the report mentioned.
She is among the most well-known enterprise executives and state officers jailed within the communist nation’s prolonged anti-graft marketing campaign often known as “Blazing Furnace.”
“The penalties Lan precipitated are unprecedented within the historical past of litigation and the amount of cash embezzled is unprecedentedly massive and unrecoverable,” the prosecution was quoted as saying on the attraction listening to by state-run on-line newspaper VietnamWeb.
“The defendant’s actions have affected many elements of society, the monetary market, the financial system,” it mentioned.
State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, together with “having admitted guilt, displaying regret and paying again a part of the amount of cash embezzled,” however prosecutors mentioned that was inadequate.
Reuters couldn’t instantly attain Lan’s legal professionals for remark.
Lan nonetheless has the best to request a assessment beneath Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.
Lan’s arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of many nation’s largest personal banks by deposits, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was on the heart of the fraud and largely owned by Lan by means of her proxies.
Documents reviewed by Reuters confirmed Vietnam’s central financial institution had as of April pumped $24 billion in “particular loans” into SCB in an “unprecedented” rescue.
Apart from the dying sentence, Lan was handed a life sentence at a separate trial in October after being discovered responsible of acquiring property by fraud, cash laundering and unlawful cross-border cash transfers.
