8.5 years in prison for 2 ignorant farmers who destroyed passion fruit in Nghe An
(Baonghean.vn) - The People's Court of Que Phong district sentenced Moong Van Nghe and Moong Van Xanh, Khmu ethnic people, residing in Pich Nieng village, Tri Le commune (Que Phong) to a total of 8.5 years in prison.
On the afternoon of January 30, the People's Court of Que Phong district held a first-instance trial of the case of property destruction and theft against the two defendants Mong Van Nghe (born 1994) and Mong Van Xanh (born 1985).
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| Court scene. Photo: Hung Cuong |
Believing that Nafoods Passion Fruit Joint Stock Company located in Tri Le (Que Phong) had not compensated for the land properly and that during the process of growing passion fruit, the company had sprayed chemicals that affected the health and lives of the people, at around 11pm on August 10, 2017, on the way home from drinking, Moong Van Nghe invited Moong Van Xanh to cut down the passion fruit trees of Nafoods Company.
Nghe's proposal was accepted by Xanh.
Nghe and Xanh went home, each took a knife, and went to the passion fruit garden of Nafoods Company, about 100 meters from Nghe's house, to cut down the trees. They both cut down 98/121 passion fruit trees. Next, Nghe and Xanh went to lot number 1, about 5 meters away, and used knives to cut off 110 passion fruit trees out of a total of 495 trees in this lot. Not stopping there, Nghe and Xanh went to lot number 2 and used knives to cut off 795 passion fruit trees.
In total, Nghe and Xanh cut down 1,223 5-month-old passion fruit plants.
At about 4:00 a.m. on August 11, 2017, Nghe and Xanh stopped cutting passion fruit and went near the fence adjacent to lot 2 and lot 3 to steal a plastic water pipe (HDPE 90 type) 50m long, 9cm in diameter and a yellow tarpaulin 60m2 wide, worth more than 7.5 million VND.
According to the conclusion of the authorities, 1,223 passion fruit trees were damaged by Nghe and Xanh, causing damage of 269,463,703 VND.
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| Two defendants at trial. Photo: Hung Cuong |
The defendant's family voluntarily compensated 6 million VND, and the representative of the victim, Nafoods Passion Fruit Joint Stock Company, did not request the defendant to pay civil compensation.
The Trial Panel sentenced Mong Van Nghe to 4 years and 6 months in prison and Mong Van Xanh to 4 years in prison for the two crimes mentioned above. Because the defendants had no stable jobs, low incomes, difficult economic conditions, no valuable assets, and their families were poor, the Trial Panel did not impose an additional penalty of a fine.
