Three Former Vice Chairmen of Long Xuyên City People’s Committee, An Giang Province, Recommended for Suspended Sentences

On January 30th, the An Giang Provincial People’s Court continued the trial involving three former Vice Chairmen of the Long Xuyên City People’s Committee (former), entering the prosecution’s argument phase.

The prosecution proposed that the trial panel sentence defendants Nguyễn Bảo Sinh and Đào Văn Ngọc to 3 years of imprisonment each, with suspended sentences. Similarly, defendant Huỳnh Giang Sơn was proposed for a 2-year suspended sentence. All three defendants are former Vice Chairmen of the Long Xuyên City People’s Committee.

Additionally, 18 other defendants were proposed for 2-3 year suspended sentences; 3 defendants were proposed for 1 year of non-custodial reform; and 1 defendant was proposed for a 1 year and 3 month sentence, equivalent to the time spent in temporary detention. Notably, 3 defendants holding positions as department heads or deputy heads were proposed for 3-4 year prison sentences.

According to the indictment, from 2018 to 2022, Mr. V.V.T. (former Deputy Director of the Project Management Board for Investment and Construction in Long Xuyên City, former Deputy Director of the Long Xuyên City Land Fund Development Center) abused his position to fabricate compensation, support, and resettlement files for personal gain.

Specifically, Mr. T. falsified 5 resettlement files, drafted land allocation decisions for his family members, forged signatures of leaders of the Long Xuyên City People’s Committee, created fake land use rights transfer contracts, and completed procedures to request land allocation and land use rights certificates. After obtaining the certificates, Mr. T. transferred the land to others for profit.

Expanding the investigation from 2010 to 2022, authorities determined that Mr. T. had fabricated a total of 23 files, of which 19 were issued land use rights certificates to ineligible resettlement recipients. After the violations were discovered, on August 1, 2022, Mr. T. committed suicide.

The investigation concluded that defendants Sinh, Ngọc, and Sơn, along with 26 former officials from the Land Fund Development Center, Land Registration Office, one-stop service department, and the Project Management Board for Investment and Construction in Long Xuyên City, were negligent in inspecting and verifying files, leading to the allocation of land and issuance of land use rights certificates to ineligible recipients, causing a state loss of over 6.8 billion VND.

Specifically, defendant Sinh signed 16 files, causing a loss of over 4.89 billion VND; defendant Ngọc signed 10 files, causing a loss of over 3.5 billion VND; and defendant Sơn signed 1 file, causing a loss of 1.53 billion VND.

Several other officials were also found to be responsible for losses ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of VND.

The trial will continue on February 2nd.