Court of Appeal considers Mr. Nguyen Duc Chung's appeal
Former Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung appealed, claiming that there was no violation in the agreement to purchase Redoxy-3C, so the court opened an appeal hearing.
As planned, on June 20, the High People's Court in Hanoi will open 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 claimed injustice before the first instance verdict of 8 years in prison for the crime ofAbusing 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 rivers and lakes in Hanoi, 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 used to treat domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, sludge and even solid waste...
Admitting that "there was a mistake in the procedure for purchasing Redoxy-3C", he affirmed that this did not cause damage to the city, and even brought more profit than usual.
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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 to be the city's exclusive product 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, with a contribution of 5 billion VND, but Giang and another person were named as 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 of Mr. Chung being tried. 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 1 year later, he received 3 more years in prison for the crimeAbusing position and power while performing official dutiesin the case involving Nhat Cuong.
In three cases, Mr. Chung did not appeal the conviction for appropriating confidential documents, and in the remaining two cases, he pleaded innocent.
