Death penalty carrier in Vietnam's corruption case

HANOI - Death penalty carrier Duong Chi Dung in Vietnam's Vinalines corruption case confessed at a trial related to his overseas fleeing case that a high-ranking official of Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security was involved.

According to a report by local Tuoitre (the Youth) online newspaper on Tuesday, Duong Chi Dung, former chairman of the National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), appeared as a witness in the trial held for his younger brother Duong Tu Trong, former deputy chief of the police department for administrative management of social security under the Ministry of Public Security and deputy director of Hai Phong City police department, on allegedly assisting Dung to flee overseas.

During the trial, which is ongoing at the Hanoi People's Court in Hanoi, Dung confessed that it was a deputy minister of the Public Security Ministry who is also the head of the investigation team in the Vinalines corruption case informed him about his arrest decision and advised him to flee.

The trial held for Duong Tu Trong and other six defendants related was opened on Tuesday, and is scheduled to last till Wednesday.

According to the indictment, after the corruption case of Duong Chi Dung was uncovered, Trong and other defendants organized to help Dung flee from Vietnam in May 2012 to Cambodia in order to fly to the United States, but failed. Dung was then arrested in Cambodia in September 2012.

Earlier in December 2013, Duong Chi Dung was sentenced to death for embezzlement and intentionally violating state regulations on economic management that caused severe losses of almost 367 billion Vietnamese dong (17.4 million U.S. dollars) to the state budget.

Vinalines corruption was among the top corruption cases brought to court in Vietnam recently. Therefore, the case of assisting his fleeing also has drawn great attention from the public.

Nguyen Thai Hoc, a member of Vietnam's National Assembly Justice Commission, and Vu Duc Khien, former head of the commission, said on Tuoitre that the person who informed Duong Chi Dung to flee should be brought to court, as it caused more difficulties to the investigation into a serious corruption case.