HANOI (AFP) – A Vietnamese court handed a former government spokesperson a suspended prison sentence yesterday for graft, state media said, an accusation that has seen dozens of senior officials jailed.
Thousands of people, including top officials and senior business leaders, have been caught up in the Southeast Asian country’s “blazing furnace” crackdown.
Yesterday the court in Hanoi handed Mai Tien Dung, former government office chairman and spokesperson for the Cabinet, a 2.5-year suspended jail term, according to state-controlled news site VNExpress.
He was found guilty of “abusing power” and taking bribes related to a USD1billion eco-resort and urban project.
Eight other government officials were handed jail terms ranging from a suspended two-year sentence and 6.5 years in prison for similar charges linked to land rights violations over the Dai Ninh real estate project in Lam Dong province.
Businessman Nguyen Cao Tri was jailed for three years for offering bribes worth more than VND7billion (USD275,000) to officials in the government inspectorate and to senior Lam Dong province officials.
As a result of the cover-up, the state could not retrieve 3,600 hectares of land, “causing land wastefulness and facilitating 24 cases of illegal forest soil destruction”, state media said.
“The defendants contributed… to reducing the prestige of the party and the administration,” VNExpress said, quoting the verdict.
