Mr. Ha Van Tham complained that he was "heavily warned" by the court of first instance.

On May 2, in his self-defense, former Ocean Bank Chairman Ha Van Tham presented six details to request a reduction in his sentence. The defendant argued that this information was not presented at the first instance trial or had not been considered by the court.

Firstly, this defendant affirmed that he came from a family with revolutionary contributions; he himself was awarded many certificates of merit and had made many contributions to society. During the investigation, Mr. Tham found that he hadconfessed honestly and cooperated well with the prosecution. "This was recorded in the investigation conclusion and indictment but was not recorded in the court of first instance," the defendant said.

For the act of paying interest outside the contract to the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN), he was convicted of three crimes, including embezzlement and abuse of power to appropriate property. The defendant committed these acts under forced circumstances and had no other choice, so he asked the appellate court to consider.

Claiming to have been "very severely deterred",Mr. Tham asked the panel of judges to accept the appeal and change the above two charges to Intentional Violation.

Other mitigating circumstances mentioned by Mr. Tham are:actively declare assets during the investigation to help remedy the consequences if sentenced to civil compensation. The defendant requests the appellate court to consider this voluntary spirit.

Ha Van Tham: The first instance verdict treated the defendant unfairly.

Mr. Tham said that the Hanoi People's Court convicted him based on his sole "motive and purpose" of attracting deposits from PVN to Oceanbank, so he paid interest outside the contract to PVN through Nguyen Xuan Son.

According to him, Hanoi People's Courtunfair declaration whenonly agreed to let PVN shareholders receive 49 billion VND in compensation, while more than 1,000 other Oceanbank shareholders did not.Similarly, former director of Oceanbank's large customer block Nguyen Xuan Thang and former deputy general director Le Thi Thu Thuy participated in helping transfer money to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Son but did not know that he was embezzling it and only knew that he was spending it for PVN, so they were convicted of intentionally violating state regulations on economic management causing serious consequences, according to Article 165 of the Penal Code.

Mr. Tham realized that he also committed "identical" acts but was convicted of two crimes: Abuse of power to appropriate property and Embezzlement of property with a combined sentence of life imprisonment.

Mr. Tham said that the first instance judgment failed to achieve the goal of deterrence and respect for the law. Because, the intentional violation of paying interest rates exceeding the ceiling involved the participation of millions of people in many banks, and customers benefited illegally.However, the court of first instance did not declare that the beneficiaries must compensate, but the defendants. This will lead to the misunderstanding that people can benefit illegally without having their money recovered. "In fact, if the customers did not demand, the defendants would not have paid the money and would not have violated the law," Mr. Tham said calmly, holding his defense paper in front of the wooden podium.

Concluding his self-defense, Mr. Ha Van Tham requested the Procuracy to answer seven questions. Among them, he wanted to clarify the fact that the court of first instance convicted "for personal purposes and group interests, Ha Van Tham gave money to Nguyen Xuan Son, which constituted the act of assisting Nguyen Xuan Son in embezzlement and appropriation of property."The prosecutor needs to clarify why he is not entitled to any mitigating circumstances...

"In case the representative of the Procuracy does not ask again for the defendant to explain, it is understood that the representative of the Procuracy has accepted the defendant's opinions in this self-defense statement," the former chairman of Oceanbank concluded his self-defense statement.