Former senior transport official gets life sentence

HCM CITY — Huynh Ngoc Sy, a former senior transportation official already serving time for "abuse of power", was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for accepting bribes from a Japanese contractor.
The HCM City People's Court also demanded that the defendant submits to State coffers the US$262,000 (equivalent to VND5.9 billion at yesterday's foreign exchange rate) that he is accused of receiving from Japanese firm Pacific Consultants International (PCI).
The court ordered a lien placed on two of his houses in the city in order to retrieve the money.
The panel of judges rejected both the arguments of Sy's lawyers on legal value of testimony in the case as well as their proposal for returning the case documents to concerned agencies for further investigations.
The panel felt there was strong evidence to show that Sy had done favours to PCI in order to receive bribes from the firm's officials.
PCI gave Sy 10 per cent of the design consultancy contract worth $900,000, and 11 per cent of the supervision consultancy contract, worth $1.7 million, the court said.
According to the documents tranferred by Japanese authorities to the Vietnamese Government, on May 28, 2003, the chief of the PCI Rep Office in Viet Nam, Sakano Tsuneo, and another Japanese man named Takasu Tunio came to Sy's office at 3 Nguyen Thi Dieu Street in District 3 and gave Sy $262,000 (equivalent to more than VND4 billion at that time).
The court said Sy's action had stained the image of Viet Nam in the global community and damaged the country's anti-corruption efforts.
His act had also caused serious consequences, affecting the Vietnamese Govern-ment's strategies on official development assistance (ODA) mobilisation, it said.
The court said receiving $262,000 was just one of six acts of bribery committed by Sy while he served as the director of the HCM City-based East-west Highway Project.
The court also proposed that the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Agency and the People's Supreme Procurary conduct further investigation into Sy's other acts.
Sy, 57, had stood trial in March this year when he was sentenced to six years for "abusing power" while performing Government service.
Sy was defended by lawyers Phan Trung Hoai, Tran Van Tao and Pham Cong Ut at the trial which began last Friday. — VNS

Source: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Politics-Laws/Law-Justice/204826/Former-senior-transport-official-gets-life-sentence.html