The family of a notorious PetroVietnam runaway bigwig has returned VND2 billion ($87,800) of the money he is accused of stealing from the state-owned oil giant, his lawyer said. Lawyer Le Van Thiep said Trinh Xuan Thanh’s mother had handed over the money to Hanoi’s Civil Case Enforcement Department under the Ministry of Justice ahead of his trial for mismanagement and embezzlement that starts Monday. In a petition, the family said that “Thanh had agreed and requested his family to voluntarily return part of the government money that was appropriated for now.” Thanh is facing the death sentence for mismanagement and allegedly stealing money from PetroVietnam Construction Corporation (PVC) during the time he served as its general director and board chairman between 2007 and 2013. But Thanh may be able to escape the harshest punishment if a sufficient amount of lost money is recovered, lawyers said. Vietnam’s revised Penal Code, effective from this month, allows those convicted of embezzlement to avoid the death sentence by returning at least 75 percent of their ill-gotten gains. Also facing trial on Monday are 21 other PetroVietnam (PVN) executives. The most high profile among them is Dinh La Thang who was former board chairman of PVN between 2006 and 2011 before his political career took off as Minister of Transport in Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s cabinet. He was arrested on December 8, after he was voted out of the then 19-member Politburo, the Party’s decision-making body, and fired as the top leader of Ho Chi… [Read full story]
A former chairman of state fuel giant PetroVietnam has appealed against the death penalty he received last week from a court in Hanoi for his role in the infamous multi-million-dollar graft case at OceanBank. On September 29, the court sentenced Nguyen Xuan Son, chairman of the board at the oil and gas group from 2014 until his arrest in 2015, to death for appropriating VND246 billion ($13.6 million) from OceanBank. PetroVietnam had acquired a 20 percent stake in OceanBank during that time, meaning Son had stolen VND49 billion in government money, prosecutors said. The 55-year-old was found guilty of embezzlement,…... [read more]
A court in Hanoi sentenced a former chairman of state fuel giant PetroVietnam to death and his counterpart at OceanBank to life imprisonment on Friday for their roles in a multi-million-dollar graft case that has riveted the nation. Nguyen Xuan Son, who served as chairman of the board at the oil and gas group from 2014 until his arrest in 2015, received the death penalty for appropriating VND246 billion ($13.6 million) from the bank. PetroVietnam had bought a 20 percent stake in OceanBank, which meant Son had stolen VND49 billion in government money, prosecutors said. The 55-year-old was charged with…... [read more]
The former board chairman of scandal-hit OceanBank has appealed the life sentence handed down to him by a court late last month, saying he is innocent of embezzlement in a multi-million-dollar graft case that has riveted the nation. Hanoi People’s Court said it had received Ha Van Tham's appeal on Tuesday in which he asked the court to reconsider the embezzlement charges he has been convicted of. He also asked a higher court to commute his sentence even if it still insists on the charges. “Please give me a chance to return to my family and society,” he said in…... [read more]
Vietnam has said it regretted to learn about accusations made by the German government that it “kidnapped” a former Vietnamese oil executive in Berlin to bring him home to face charges of financial malfeasance, adding further investigations are underway. Le Thi Thu Hang, Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson, reiterated at a press briefing on Thursday that Trinh Xuan Thanh, who is accused of gross mismanagement at a subsidiary of national oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, had “turned himself in” to Vietnamese police on Monday after a 10-month international manhunt. A terse statement on the Ministry of Public Security's website, the only official source…... [read more]
. A former oil executive accused of financial malfeasance appeared on Vietnam's state television on Thursday evening, confirming he had turned himself in and saying he needed to return to "face the truth". The confession of Trinh Xuan Thanh, the former chairman and CEO of a subsidiary of national oil and gas giant PetroVietnam, was made public after Germany accused Vietnam of kidnapping him in Berlin. It dovetailed with Vietnam's official explanation for his return to the country; but it remains unclear how he did so. Looking tired in a prime-time evening news bulletin on Vietnam Television, Thanh said: “It was frivolous…... [read more]
