Issued on: 03/11/2024 – 22:40Modified: 03/11/2024 – 22:38

2 minutes

Property developer Truong My Lan, 68, was convicted earlier this year of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which prosecutors said she controlled, and sentenced to death in one of the biggest cases of corruption of history.

Tens of thousands of people who had invested their savings in the bank lost money, shocking the communist nation and prompting rare protests from victims.

The Ho Chi Minh City court will review Lan’s request for a reduced sentence, along with those of 47 other defendants, during a three-week appeal attended by 100 lawyers, state media said.

In his handwritten appeal, spanning more than five pages seen by AFP, Lan said the death penalty was “too severe and harsh”.

He asked the court to consider a more “lenient and humane” approach.

“Due to my passion for business and desire to build and contribute by creating world-class projects for Vietnam, I have exchanged and sacrificed a lot of happiness for myself and my family,” the appeal states.

Lan said he had suffered due to the pressure of negative public opinion.

“Every night I still feel tormented and wonder why my family and I are in this situation,” Lan said.

The appeal comes after Lan was found guilty of money laundering and jailed for life in a separate case last month.

Fake loan applications

During her first trial in April, Lan was found guilty of embezzling $12.5 billion, but prosecutors said the total damages caused by the scam amounted to $27 billion, equivalent to about six percent of the country’s GDP. in 2023.

The court ordered Lan to pay almost all of the damages.

One of the victims, Le Hang, 84, told AFP he did not want Lan to die, even though he lost more than half a million dollars in the fraud.

“She must live to fix what she has done and reward people like me,” said Hang, who has regularly attended protests outside the Ho Chi Minh City court.

“I hope he survives.”

Eighty-five other people were also convicted on charges ranging from bribery and abuse of power to appropriation and violations of banking laws.

They were arrested as part of a nationwide crackdown on corruption that has swept up numerous officials and members of Vietnam’s business elite.

Between 2012 and 2022, Lan used nearly 1,300 false loan applications to withdraw money from SCB, in which he owned a 90 percent stake, the court found.

His driver transported the equivalent of more than $4.4 billion in cash from SCB’s headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City to his nearby home and the headquarters of his real estate development group Van Thinh Phat, state media reported, citing the police investigation.

© 2024 AFP