Vietnam’s richest woman, Truong My-lan, was involved in a financial fraud case worth up to $27 billion. She was originally sentenced to death in April last year. However, Truong My-lan’s lawyer said today (25) that because the Vietnamese National Assembly passed a law amendment to remove eight crimes including “embezzlement of property” from the death penalty list, Truong My-lan will be sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to AFP, Truong My-lan was sentenced to death for illegally embezzling huge sums of money from the Saigon Commercial Bank, causing thousands of depositors to lose their hard-earned money. However, the Vietnamese National Assembly recently amended the law to abolish the death penalty for eight crimes including embezzlement of property, which will take effect from July 1. After confirming that Truong My-lan’s death penalty could be changed to life imprisonment, her defense lawyer immediately notified her. The lawyer relayed that Truong My-lan was very happy.
Vietnamese Minister of Public Security Luong Sam Quang said that some of the death penalty crimes in Vietnam are no longer in line with Vietnam’s current social and economic conditions and the reality of crime prevention, so the National Assembly has made structural adjustments to the law. Vietnam’s Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh also admitted that in fact most death penalty cases in Vietnam have not been carried out, which is one of the reasons for promoting this legislative amendment by the National Assembly.
