A high-ranking property tycoon in Vietnam has been sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated $27 billion in damages, Africa Today News, New York reports.
All of the defence reasons made by Truong My Lan, the chair of big developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of embezzling money from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) for more than ten years, were rejected by a panel of two judges and three hand-picked jurors.
“The defendant’s actions… eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the (Communist) Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City.
After the trial which lasted for 5 weeks, 85 others were also sentenced on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to appropriation and violations of banking law. Four were given life imprisonment, while the others received jail terms ranging between 20 years and three years suspended.
Lan’s husband, Hong Kong billionaire Eric Chu Nap Kee, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Lan embezzled $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said Thursday the total damages caused by the scam now amounted to $27 billion — a figure equivalent to six percent of the country’s 2023 GDP.
The court ordered Lan, 67, to pay almost the entire damages sum in compensation.
The death sentence is an unusually severe punishment in such a case, although the country is a leading executioner globally, according to Amnesty International.
Lan and the others were arrested as part of a national corruption crackdown that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite in recent years.
She appeared to say in final remarks to the court last week that she had thoughts of suicide.
“In my desperation, I thought of death,” she said, according to state media.
“I am so angry that I was stupid enough to get involved in this very fierce business environment — the banking sector — which I have little knowledge of.”
Hundreds of people began to stage protests in the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, a relatively rare occurrence in the one-party communist state, after Lan’s arrest in October 2022.
Police have identified around 42,000 victims of the scandal, which has shocked the Southeast Asian country.