Court asks for further investigation in land-use violation case involving HCM City's former leader

HCM City (VNA) – The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on March 26 decided to return dossiers of the law violation case involving the land lot at 57 Cao Thang street being exchanged for the land lot at 185 Hai Ba Trung street in the city for further investigations as new evidence and details have been found.

According to the jury, it asked the Supreme People’s Procuracy to make further investigations into eight major issues, including those related to the mortgage of the land lot at 57 Cao Thang of Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Co. at Agribank’s Ho Chi Minh City Branch.

The jury asked for the clarification of property lease agreement involving the land lot at 185 Hai Ba Trung street among three parties of Agribank, the Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Co., and Phan Thanh Company.

In this case, Duong Thi Bach Diep, Director of the Diep Bach Duong Real Estate Co., is among the key defendants in the trial, and is charged with “fraud, appropriation of assets”.

Nine other defendants in the case are charged with “lack of responsibility, causing serious consequences,” including former Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Tai; former Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Finance Tran Nam Trang; former Director of the HCM City Light Music Centre Vy Nhat Tao; former Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Thanh Rum; former Deputy Director of the department Le Ton Thanh; former deputy heads of the municipal People’s Committee Office Huynh Kim Phat and Le Van Thanh; former Director of the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment Dao Anh Kiet; and former Deputy Director of the department Nguyen Thanh Nhan.

According to the indictment, the land lot at 185 Hai Ba Trung street, owned by the State, was the headquarters of the Light Music Centre under the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism. In 2007, the centre’s then director Vy Nhat Tao contacted Diep to cooperate in upgrading the headquarters.

Diep then proposed exchanging her land lot at 57 Cao Thang street for the 185 Hai Ba Trung land lot, as she owned the land lot at 179 Hai Ba Trung street and wanted to build a five-star hotel complex there.

The property swap was approved by Nguyen Thanh Tai. During the process, Diep used the land use right certificate for the land lot at 57 Cao Thang as collateral to borrow money from Agribank - HCM City Branch.

After being granted a land right use certificate for the property at 185 Hai Ba Trung streer, however, Diep did not use it to replace the collateral at Agribank to hand over the property at 57 Cao Thang to the Light Music Centre as committed. Instead, Diep used the 185 Hai Ba Trung land lot as collateral for a loan at Southern Bank (now Sacombank) and so far was not able to repay the debt.

The indictment stated that Tai permitted the property swap while he was not responsible for handling and reorganising State assets.

On March 5, 2010, Tai signed a document sent to relevant units approving the exchange of the two land lots, without any request to check and clarify the legal status of the 57 Cao Thang land lot, causing losses of State assets.

The other defendants showed a lack of responsibility in carrying out their duties, thus facilitating Diep’s fraud and appropriation of assets.

At the hearing on March 22, representative from the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuracy proposed that the court give Diep life imprisonment for the charge of “fraud, appropriation of assets” under Article 174 of the 2015 Penal Code.

 

It also suggested that the court sentence Nguyen Thanh Tai, Nguyen Thanh Nhan and Vi Nhat Tao to 5-6 years in jail; Nguyen Thanh Rum, Dao Anh Kiet to 4-5 years’ imprisonment; Le Van Than, Huynh Kim Phat to 3-4 years’ imprisonment; and Trang Nam Trang and Le Ton Thanh to 3 years of suspended imprisonment.

The city People’s Procuracy asked the court to return the land lot at 185 Hai Ba Trung street to the HCM City Light Music Centre for management.

Earlier, the first-instance trial for the case was suspended twice on March 17 due to the health condition of Diep and on March 25 to re-evaluate evidence./.