During the questioning session of the appeal trial of the "rescue flight" case on the afternoon of December 25, former secretary of the Deputy Minister of Health Pham Trung Kien stated that after the first instance trial, the defendant had influenced his family to recover the remaining 400 million VND and pay an additional 100 million VND in penalties.
In court, defendant Kien asked the panel of judges to consider mitigating circumstances such as: Actively confessing, repenting, being sincere; participating in many charity activities, receiving many thank you letters from humanitarian organizations...
The former secretary also stated that the defendant's wife had many certificates of merit and was an emulation fighter.
Mr. Kien stated that after the first instance trial, he continued to work with the investigation agency to make further statements and clarify violations related to the VND15 billion the defendant received when granting flight permits to individual passengers.
Defendant Pham Trung Kien at the first instance trial (Photo: Hai Phuong).
Choking at the witness stand, the former deputy minister's secretary asked to receive a fixed-term prison sentence so he could return to start his life over.
"I respectfully ask the People's Court, the Party leaders and the people to forgive me. I am sentenced to life in prison. I wonder if my parents are still waiting for me to return," the defendant stated, and at the same time asked to unseal the apartment in Royal City and the land bought with someone else in Mui Ne (Phan Thiet).
According to the case file, former secretary of the Deputy Minister of Health Pham Trung Kien was responsible for receiving, submitting to the Deputy Minister for approval, and signing response documents related to giving opinions on approving flights at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and agencies, organizations, and individuals.
Although he had no function or duty in approving the flight, Mr. Kien was the officer who received the most bribes, both in terms of number of times and amount of money, in the "rescue flight" case.
During the performance of his duties, the former secretary asked representatives of businesses and individuals to pay 50-200 million VND/flight; from 500,000 VND to 2 million VND/passenger for combo flights; 7-15 million VND/individual passenger.
During the process of granting flight licenses, from February 2021 to December 2021, Pham Trung Kien received bribes 253 times from 18 individual business representatives and a number of individual customers, totaling more than 42 billion VND.
After the bribery case at the Consular Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs was prosecuted, Kien returned 12 billion VND to the business.
The defendant used the remaining 20 billion VND to buy land in many places such as Mui Ne (Binh Thuan), Ba Vi district and Hoai Duc (Hanoi); in addition, he lent more than 10 billion VND.
However, considering that during the investigation, prosecution and at court, the defendant changed his testimony, confessed honestly, during the trial the defendant recovered over 42 billion VND, and his family has a father who contributed to the revolution.
During his work, the defendant made many contributions and was awarded many certificates of merit. Therefore, the court of first instance sentenced defendant Pham Trung Kien to life in prison.
At the trial this afternoon, the panel of judges asked many questions to former Director of the Consular Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Nguyen Thi Huong Lan about the purpose of using the bribe money of 25 billion VND.
In court, Ms. Lan admitted that when businesses came to meet her and gave her money, it was a violation and this affected the reputation and honor of the Party, State and people.
Defendant Nguyen Thi Huong Lan at the first instance trial (Photo: Vo Nam).
The female defendant admitted to receiving more than VND25 billion from businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, but Ms. Lan could not remember clearly what she used the money for.
Afterwards, the panel of judges repeatedly reminded Ms. Lan that this amount of money was very large, but up to now the defendant has not yet fulfilled her obligation to pay compensation.
In response, the former Director of the Consular Department stated that the frozen bank account contained bonds and stocks purchased from 2021-2022. At the same time, the defendant stated that his family currently has no money to pay to remedy the consequences of the case.
According to the case file, from December 2020 to January 2022, during the process of licensing rescue flights, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong Lan received bribes of more than 25 billion VND from representatives of 8 businesses. The female defendant has only paid more than 1 billion VND to remedy the consequences.
At the first instance verdict, the former Consular Director was sentenced to life in prison.
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