Two Shipping Executives Sentenced to Death in Vietnam
A court in Vietnam has sentenced to death two executives from its local shipping industry for embezzling money through shipping deals made between 2006 and 2008.
The story was reported in the state-run newspaper, Tuoi Tre .
The People’s Court in Hanoi found Giang Kim Dat and Tran Van Liem, former employees of the scandal-ridden shipbuilder Vinashin Ocean Shipping Company (Vinashinlines), guilty of stealing $11.3 million, which led to the collapse of the state-owned company.
Liem, the company’s former director general, and Dat, its former sales manager, received their sentences after a four-day trial.
The case revolves around the purchase of three ships from Panama, Greece, and Croatia, the illegally fixing of charter rates with various parties, and the laundering of the money through 22 different accounts opened in the name of defendant Dat’s his father. The latter, Giang Van Hien, received a sentence of 12 years in prison.
The firm’s former accountant, Tran Van Khuong, was sentenced to life in prison for assisting with the embezzlement.
“All the defendants are convicted of serious crimes, causing damage to the state…so they should face a strict punishment,” the verdict said, as reported by Tuoi Tre.
Vinashinlines is a subsidiary of the carrier Vinashin, which nearly went belly up in 2010 under billions of dollars of debt. Nine former executives of that firm were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2012.
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