HANOI: A former banking magnate and 50 others went on trial in Vietnam Monday over a multi-million dollar fraud at a major private bank, as the communist nation cracks down on corruption in the sector.
Authorities have vowed to clean up an industry plagued by favoritism and dodgy loans — part of a broader drive against corruption in the country.
In the latest trial the ex-chairman of Ocean Bank, Ha Van Tham, is accused of illegally approving loans worth $23 million in 2012, ultimately leading to the bank’s demise and stripping him of his status as one of the country’s richest men.
Tham and 50 other bankers and businessmen, most of whom worked at Ocean Bank, face various charges related to the illegal loan in the 20-day trial that opened Monday.
Some face the death penalty, according to the lengthy indictment.
The trial involves a record 50 defense lawyers and more than 700 witnesses, and is the second time the accused have appeared after a March trial was postponed for further investigation.
Tham is accused of approving the loan to the Trung Dung real estate company without proper collateral.
The head of the real estate company, Pham Cong Danh, is currently in jail after a separate conviction of economic mismanagement.
Ocean Group, which includes real estate and hotel subsidiaries, enjoyed a meteoric rise after its founding in 2007, and was valued at $500 million in 2013 under Tham’s stewardship.
But after Tham was arrested in 2014, most bank branches shut and the State Bank of Vietnam, the central bank, acquired Ocean Bank for $0.
Ocean Group is still active in real estate and hotels and services and was valued at about $3.5 million in 2016, according to its website.
Vietnam has already jailed dozens of bankers in other high-profile banking cases, though some say corrupt officials should be targeted as part of the crackdown.
“In economic cases, only enterprise managers and owners are put on trial, not policymakers or state officials... punishment of party and state (officials) is not strong enough,” economic law expert Nguyen Viet Khoa told AFP.
In September last year 36 former Vietnam Construction Bank employees were given jail terms of up to 30 years, after they were accused of secretly withdrawing millions of dollars from clients’ accounts to use for loans or keep for themselves.
Bad debts have long plagued the banking industry. They make up some eight percent of outstanding loans, according to the state bank, though experts say the real number could be far higher.
Authorities have also targeted other sectors in their anti-corruption drive, though analysts say convictions are often driven by political infighting rather than a genuine commitment to reform.
This month Germany accused Vietnam of kidnapping Trinh Xuan Thanh, a former oil executive accused of corruption, from a Berlin park.
Officials in Vietnam said he turned himself over to police in Hanoi voluntarily.
51 bankers, businessmen on trial in Vietnam for fraud
51 bankers, businessmen on trial in Vietnam for fraud
Palestinian ambassador condemns British Museum’s removal of the word ‘Palestine’ from displays
- The museum updated some exhibits in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace ‘Palestine’ with ‘Canaanite’
- It followed complaints from a pro-Israel group that use of the word ‘Palestine’ could obscure the ‘history of the Jewish people’
LONDON: The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, condemned a decision by the British Museum in London to remove the word “Palestine” from certain displays, following pressure from a pro-Israel group.
“Cultural institutions must not become arenas for political campaigns,” the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported Zomlot as saying on Monday. “Palestine exists. It has always existed and it always will.”
The British Museum updated some displays in its ancient Middle East galleries to replace the word “Palestine” with “Canaanite,” The Guardian newspaper reported.
It did so after the group UK Lawyers for Israel expressed concern that the inclusion of the word “Palestine” in displays related to the ancient Levant and Egypt could obscure the “history of Israel and the Jewish people.”
In a letter to the director of the museum, Nicholas Cullinan, they wrote: “Applying a single name — Palestine — retrospectively to the entire region, across thousands of years, erases historical changes and creates a false impression of continuity.”
The museum said it views the word “Palestine” to be no longer considered historically “neutral,” and that it might be interpreted as a reference to political territory.
However, the Palestinian embassy said: “Attempts to cast the very name ‘Palestine’ as controversial risk contributing to a broader climate that normalizes the denial of Palestinian existence at a time when the Palestinian people in Gaza face an ongoing genocide, and their fellow Palestinians in the West Bank face ongoing ethnic cleansing, annexation and state-sponsored violence.”
More than 9,000 people have so far signed a Change.org petition calling on the museum to reverse its decision, arguing that it lacks historical support and erases Palestinian presence from public memory.
