Can the court only consider reducing the sentence for Huyen Nhu?

On December 30, Huyen Nhu's appeal hearing continued with the debate of lawyers defending Vietinbank's rights against the accusations of the representative of the People's Procuracy, and the request for payment from lawyers representing the companies that are civil plaintiffs.

In her defense, lawyer Nguyen Thi Bac, defending Vietinbank’s rights, continued to maintain all the content of the previous debate, affirming that ACB’s money flow into Vietinbank was illegal. Therefore, ACB must take responsibility for its own actions.

Due to the prolonged debate, the trial is unlikely to end on December 31, 2014 as planned.

From here, Lawyer Bac believes that the overall behavior has been very clear. Nhu promised and paid high interest rates and commissions to "buy" the trust of SBBS (Saigonbank Berjaya Securities Company), Huynh Thi Bao Ngoc (the "broker") and ACB employees. Then, the above individuals abandoned their accounts and savings cards, leading to the incident of Nhu's appropriation.

“If (SBBS and ACB) had thought calmly and not lost their minds because of money, they would not have fallen into the trap… The opinion of the People's Procuracy and the lawyers that Nhu appropriated Vietinbank's money is not consistent with Nhu's subjective consciousness” - lawyer Bac stated his opinion.

Vietinbank's lawyer said that if everyone had fulfilled their responsibilities as account holders and savings card holders, Nhu would not have been able to defraud them and they would not have lost any money. From that, she concluded that the mistakes and lack of responsibility were the decisive factors that allowed Nhu to successfully carry out the appropriation.

Another argument that Ms. Bac also gave to prove that SBBS's lawyer said that Nhu and this company had no personal relationship was very forced. "If so, why did Vu Thi My Linh (SBBS's chief accountant) transact with Nhu to sign a (fake) capital trust contract at Nha Be Branch, while she herself knew Nhu was working at Dien Bien Phu transaction office?"

From then on, she thought that Nhu and Linh had a secret agreement, and then Linh only transferred to SBBS 4.2 billion VND out of the 27 billion VND that Nhu transferred to Linh, the rest was kept by Linh and divided with Hai.

Lawyer Bac also said that Nhu did not "take advantage of the name" of Vietinbank as the People's Procuracy alleged, but in fact, Nhu "impersonated" to conduct illegal transactions.

Regarding the proposal to partially annul the first instance judgment to reinvestigate the crime of "embezzlement of property", lawyer Bac affirmed that the first instance judgment convicting Nhu of "fraudulent appropriation of property" had taken legal effect because there was no appeal or protest.

And according to the law, the appellate panel can only consider the defendant's case in a mitigating direction, but cannot decide on a more serious charge (embezzlement). If desired, this (investigation in the direction of "embezzlement of property") can only be done under the cassation procedure.

According to Infonet