Sentencing of defendant Truong My Lan and accomplices
After nearly a month of trial and lengthy deliberation, today, the High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced defendant Truong My Lan and 47 accomplices.
During the previous interrogation, defendant Truong My Lan did not plead guilty, only asked the panel of judges to consider reducing her sentence to escape the death penalty.
Expressing her desire to remedy the consequences of the case, in addition to the series of assets that are being seized and frozen, Ms. Lan also brought 658 property codes that are currently not mortgaged anywhere to remedy.
With the hope that the panel of judges will consider reducing the sentences for the defendants, relatives of defendants Truong My Lan, Chu Lap Co and Truong Hue Van have paid more than 95 billion VND to remedy the consequences into the enforcement agency's account at the State Treasury.
Although she did not plead guilty, only asked for a lighter sentence, when answering the lawyer, defendant Truong My Lan asked the panel of judges to reconsider the charges.Embezzlement of property"Embezzlement is taking other people's money and putting it in your pocket, but the defendant's assets are all in SCB," Ms. Lan explained.
According to Ms. Lan, in 2012, when SCB was in trouble, she mortgaged the 5-star Windsor Hotel to the State Bank of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City branch, borrowing 15,000 billion VND to transfer to SCB. However, because the State Bank lent for a short period of time, she later had to mortgage other assets, including Times Square, Cho Vai, etc., to restructure SCB.
Regarding asset valuation, Ms. Lan said that Hoang Quan Valuation Company incorrectly valued 1,121 of her assets. The company valued them at VND295,000 billion, only 60% of the asset value.
The defendants, former leaders and employees at SCB Bank, also asked the People's Court to consider reducing their sentences so they can return to their families soon.
Responding to Ms. Lan’s role at SCB, defendant Truong Khanh Hoang (former acting General Director of SCB) stated that when he first started working, defendant Dinh Van Thanh (former Chairman of the Board of Directors) told him that Ms. Lan was the “sponsor” of SCB. Therefore, defendant Hoang thought that Ms. Lan was a person with great influence on this bank.
Defendant Nguyen Van Thanh Hai (former Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of SCB) stated that at the time of signing the documents, he was not aware of his wrongdoings. It was only during the first instance trial that he realized that all the approved reports did not accurately reflect reality.
Collapsed when the prosecutor proposed to keep the death sentence
In the indictment, the representative of the People's Procuracy said that the defendant Lan's crime was especially serious, committing 3 crimes at the same time, causing bad public opinion.
The court of first instance sentenced the defendant to death for the crime of "Embezzlement of property", 20 years in prison for the crime of "Bribery", 20 years in prison for the crime of "Violating regulations on lending in the activities of credit institutions", the total sentence is the death penalty, which is the right person, the right crime, and not a wrongful conviction.
However, at the appeal hearing, the defendant confessed honestly and proposed to include 658 property codes that were not mortgaged or seized to remedy the consequences, so this is a new mitigating circumstance. Therefore, the representative of the People's Procuracy requested the panel of judges to partially accept the defendant Lan's appeal for the crime of "Violating regulations on lending in the activities of credit institutions".
Accordingly, the People's Procuracy proposed a sentence of 14-16 years in prison for this crime. It did not accept the appeal to reduce the sentence for the crimes of "Embezzlement of property" and "Bribery". The total sentence that the People's Procuracy proposed that defendant Truong My Lan must serve is the death penalty.
When proposed the death penalty, Ms. Lan lost her composure and said: "I respectfully ask the Court and the Procuracy to consider carefully for the defendant. The defendant only wishes to be able to repay the debt to the State Bank."
Believing that this case was "too terrible" and had destroyed many dreams and hopes of her and other defendants, Ms. Lan once again hoped that the People's Court would reconsider the charge of "Embezzlement of property" and reduce her sentence.
"I am almost 70 years old this year. If the court reduces the sentence to 20 years in prison, I don't know if I will live until then," Ms. Lan said.
Given the last word before the court deliberated, both defendants Truong Hue Van and Chu Lap Co did not ask for leniency for themselves but mainly praised Ms. Lan's charity work and asked the panel of judges to consider leniency for her.