Vietnamese lawmakers on Wednesday abolished the death penalty for eight offenses, including bribery, which Truong My Lan (C) was convicted of and sentenced to death for last year. Photo by EPA-EFE
Vietnam has abolished the death penalty for eight criminal offenses, including bribery, embezzlement and drug smuggling, setting the stage for the courts to spare the life of a real estate tycoon sentenced to death last year in the country’s largest-ever financial fraud case.
The law removing the death penalty from the handful of offenses was adopted by Vietnam’s National Assembly on Wednesday, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported. The vote was near unanimous with 429 of 439 lawmakers in the assembly voting in favor of the reform, which will take effect Tuesday.
Crimes that will no longer carry the death penalty include bribery, embezzlement, attempts to overthrow the government, producing or selling counterfeit medicine, undermining peace, provoking war, espionage, and drug trafficking.
According to the report, those sentenced to death prior to July 1 on any of these offenses who have not been executed will have their sentences commuted by the chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court to life imprisonment.
Those affected include Truong My Lan, a property developer found guilty and sentenced to death in April 2024 in the largest-ever financial fraud case in the country.
She was convicted of causing the Saigon Commercial Bank, which she controlled through shell companies, to lose about $44 billion over a decade, specifically of embezzling $12.5 billion, with the remaining $27 billion having been misappropriated.
She appealed her conviction, which was upheld in December.
