Mr. Kien pleaded for innocence and asked for exoneration for the other defendants.

On the morning of May 26, the trial of "Boss" Kien and his accomplices continued. During the morning, the panel of judges focused on clarifying some issues related to the crimes of fraud, tax evasion, etc. of "Boss" Kien. In court, "Boss" Kien claimed that he was wronged.

"Boss" Kien in court.

Regarding the fraud of Hoa Phat, "Bau Kien" said: Until I was arrested, I had carried out my agreement with Mr. Long (chairman of Hoa Phat), which was actually a service provision agreement under Article 74 of the Commercial Law, including the following contents: Contract to transfer shares of Hoa Phat Real Estate held by ACI to MTV Hoa Phat, I was the one who brought this 264 billion to make a stock swap contract and I bought the shares through my sister. I affirm that I, Mr. Thanh, and Ms. Yen did not have any fraudulent behavior in this matter.

During the process of signing and implementing the contract, there were errors from Hoa Phat's leaders that were purely business-related in nature, not fraud. Mr. Thanh and Ms. Yen made mistakes when implementing my instructions. I accept full responsibility so that Hoa Phat does not suffer any damage and Mr. Thanh and Ms. Yen do not have to bear any responsibility.

When the lawyer asked about tax evasion, "Boss" Kien repeated the mistakes of the Ministry of Finance's appraisal agency as in the previous trial. Regarding the intentional violation, Mr. Kien said:

After 21 months of detention, to this day I still do not know why I was arrested and prosecuted for intentional wrongdoing because my role at ACB was divided into two periods. After 2008 until my arrest, I was only a consultant, and had no value in making decisions for the ACB Board of Directors, but I am willing to share the difficulties with the Board of Directors today. I did not direct anything to any member.

The appraiser made some basic mistakes: corporate income tax appraisal must be done on all contracts of the enterprise in that year, based on the legal regulations at that time. The appraiser forgot that the Ministry of Finance had a document exempting small and medium enterprises from 30% of income tax. The appraiser forgot the minimum legal regulations.

Second, the representative of the Ministry of Finance and the appraiser said that they based their conclusion on 5 documents. I think that there are 2 important documents that the investigation agency did not send them: the appendix between me and Huong, the minutes confirming the loss of B&B company on December 31st was 268 billion. These 2 documents accurately reflect the business nature of the company.

Previously, when answering the questions of the jury, Mr. Nguyen Duc Kien said that in the company charter, it is stipulated that with the number of shares held by AFG Group, ACI Company is a subsidiary of AFG Group. I am the representative, in the shareholders' meeting, I am the one who has the right to decide everything according to the company charter.

The panel of judges asked "boss" Kien whether he found the testimony of Mr. Tran Ngoc Thanh in court correct. Mr. Kien said: "I regret that I did not witness the testimony during Mr. Thanh's interrogation with the panel of judges, so I cannot say everything that Mr. Thanh said.

But as I understand it, Mr. Thanh performs the duties of a director and chief accountant, so of course he must exercise the powers of a director. However, in this case, Mr. Thanh trusted me, so he did this job."

Regarding the case file and the petition sent to the authorities, “boss” Kien requested to exempt the other defendants, especially Mr. Tran Ngoc Thanh. Mr. Kien explained that, not from now, but right from the time the prosecution order was issued, I submitted a petition requesting the investigation agency not to criminalize this case. I believe that the investigation agency has criminalized economic activities. In this case, I bear full personal responsibility as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company, so that in any case, Hoa Phat Group or the steel company will not suffer any damage.”

According to LDO