Hanoi (VNA) – Former Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long and five other defendants in the Viet A case had their sentences reduced during an appeal court hearing in Hanoi on May 17.
Long’s sentence was reduced to 17 years from 18 years handed down in the first instance trial for accepting bribes, after he contributed an additional 1 billion VND (41,600 USD) to mitigate the overall consequences of the case.
The court upheld the original sentence for Phan Quoc Viet, General Director of Viet A Company, a total of 29 years in prison, including 14 years for "violating regulations on bidding, causing serious consequences" and 15 years for "offering bribes."
Other defendants were given jail terms ranging from 24 months to 15 years.
In December 2021, police arrested and initiated legal proceedings against Viet for raising the price of RT-PCR COVID-19 test kits and bribing health officials to secure sales.
Viet and company leaders admitted that they had worked with hospitals and disease control centres (CDCs) in localities to sell test kits at significantly inflated prices.
The Viet A company sold more than 4.5 million test kits, resulting in a loss of 1,235 billion VND (48.35 million USD), with over 402 billion VND to the State budget.
In response, the Ministry of Public Security’s Investigation Agency froze transactions and deposits and confiscated a total of around 1.7 trillion VND (73.9 million USD) linked with this case./.
