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On the afternoon of July 17, at the trial of the “rescue flight” case, defendant Tran Van Du (former Deputy Director of the Immigration Department) defended himself.
Accused of being responsible for the bribe of 7.6 billion VND, the representative of the People's Procuracy proposed sentencing defendant Tran Van Du to 9-10 years in prison for the crime of Receiving Bribes.
Given the right to self-defense, defendant Tran Van Du did not deny the prosecution of the above crime but said that accepting bribes was "unintentional" for him personally.
Defendant Tran Van Du stated: "I was authorized by the leaders of the Ministry of Public Security to sign documents to participate in the opinions of the working group of 5 ministries. I can sign at any time, equal to Mr. To Anh Dung, but through the documents, it is proven that no business has come to ask me about creating conditions or sharing profits with me."
According to the defendant, only 2 businesses came to give the defendant 50 million VND to ask for more information about organizing flights, including Vietnamese people residing abroad with foreign residence papers using visa exemption papers.
Defendant Tran Van Du also stated that his subordinate, defendant Vu Anh Tuan (former officer of the Immigration Department), reported on the amount of money received from the company and said it was a gift, a “bonus” from the company after organizing the flight. “No one told me it was a bribe,” defendant Tran Van Du stated.
In his defense, Mr. Tran Van Du said that he had requested the money to be returned to the business, not to bring shame to the Immigration Department in general and the defendant in particular.
“Because at that time I was about to retire, to be known as a "late afternoon market, grabbing small pieces of the land" I did not want those things, but Vu Anh Tuan reported to me that some businesses had turned off their phones and could not be contacted, some said that the money sent to the Immigration Department was not worth much so there was nothing to worry about. I was sure that the total amount of money received from the businesses was only around 7 billion, but when I read the indictment, I was shocked to find out that all the content reported by the officers below was not true. Next, I did not have any information, so the act of receiving money was indeed accepting bribes but unintentionally, not knowing but still receiving", defendant Tran Van Du stated.
According to Mr. Du's statement, the defendant accepted responsibility and did not avoid it.
Mr. Du further stated: "The defendant determined that even though this was money he accidentally received as a bribe, it was still "bad luck". If he was unlucky, he could just return it to the State, it would be fine."
"And when the defendant was temporarily detained, the first thing he did was call his wife to prepare 3 billion VND to pay the State and said: "I'm going on vacation for a while and then I'll come back", defendant Du stated.
Recalling his more than 43 years of service in the police force and 38 years of working at the Immigration Department, defendant Tran Van Du regretted that he had "got a little dirty" in the last 2 years.
Defending his client, defendant Tran Van Du's lawyer said that licensing flights during an epidemic was the first time it had been done, so it was urgent, there was overlap, and authority was unclear.
The main objective reason leading to the incident was that the authorities did not set a ceiling price for collecting flight fares from customers.
The collection of money is agreed upon by businesses with customers in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, when people are facing life and death. Many businesses have offered high prices to collect money from Vietnamese citizens in countries who want to return home.
By organizing each flight like that, businesses make a big profit. Businesses then use that money to bribe the authorities to continuously conduct flights.
The defendant Tran Van Du's lawyer presented mitigating circumstances for his client such as first-time offender, having prevented and contributed to reducing the harm of the crime... to request the panel of judges to consider giving the defendant a lower sentence than the one proposed by the representative of the People's Procuracy.
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