Mr. Ha Van Tham complained that the court of first instance "heavily warned" him.

On May 2, in his self-defense, former chairman of Ocean Bank Ha Van Tham raised 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 made many contributions to society. During the investigation, Mr. Tham realized 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. These acts were committed by the defendant under forced circumstances and without any other choice, so the appeal court is requested 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 the crime of 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 claim whenonly agreed to allow PVN shareholders to receive compensation of 49 billion VND, 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 and only knew to spend it on 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 had 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 rule of 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 beneficiary must compensate, but the defendants. This will lead to the misunderstanding that people can benefit illegally without having their profits 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 that the Procuracy 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, please understand 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.