The Court of Appeal heard the appeal of Mr. Nguyen Duc Chung

As planned, on June 20, the High People's Court in Hanoi opened an appeal hearing to consider the appeal of former Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung in the case of purchasing Redoxy-3C to clean up rivers and lakes. Mr. Chung protested his innocence against the first instance verdict of 8 years in prison for the crime ofTaking advantage of position and power while performing official duties.

For the same crime, Nguyen Truong Giang, former Director of Arktic Trading and Service Company Limited, was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison, and appealed for a lighter sentence. Vo Tien Hung, former General Director of Hanoi Drainage Company Limited, was sentenced to 4 years in prison but did not appeal.

Before the appeal hearing, while in prison, Mr. Chung wrote a 106-page handwritten petition explaining the issues of the appeal. He said that the serious pollution of Hanoi’s rivers and lakes, which has been going on for many years, has affected people’s health and hindered economic development.

In 2016, he treated the lakes with Redoxy-3C, a product imported from Watch Water Company (Germany). According to him, this product is not only used to treat lake water pollution but also to treat domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, sludge and even solid waste...

Admitting that "there was a mistake in the Redoxy-3C purchase procedure," he asserted that this did not cause damage to the city and even brought in more profit than usual.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Chung at the first instance court. Photo:VNA

The first instance verdict determined that Mr. Chung, as the head of the city, had asked Watch Water Company (Germany) to research the Redoxy-3C product. He wanted this product to be exclusive to the city, and Watch Water then agreed to sell it at a "preferential" price of 8.5 euros/kg.

After testing the first 100 kg of the product, Mr. Chung verbally instructed General Director Vo Tien Hung to "purchase the Redoxy-3C product through Arktic Company". This company was established by Mr. Chung's wife, contributing 5 billion VND, but Giang and another person were the owners.

The former City Chairman issued a notice of negotiations to exclusively purchase the product from Germany, but instructed Mr. Hung not to buy it directly at a preferential price, but to buy it through Arktic.

From 2016 to 2019, under the direction and facilitation of Mr. Chung, Arktic imported more than 489,000 kg of Redoxy-3C at a cost of more than 115 billion VND. Arktic resold it to Hanoi Drainage Company Limited for more than 151 billion VND. The roundabout trading behavior of the two companies caused Hanoi to suffer a loss of 36.1 billion VND.

This is the third case Mr. Chung has been tried for. In December 2020, the former Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee was sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Hanoi People's Court for the crime ofAppropriation of state secret documentsand a year later, he received an additional three years in prison forTaking advantage of position and power while performing official dutiesin the case involving Nhat Cuong.

In three cases, Mr. Chung did not appeal the sentence for appropriating confidential documents, and in the remaining two cases, he pleaded innocent.