85 merit certificates, medals could win leniency for former Hanoi mayor

Hanoi prosecutors have proposed that an appeals court reduces the prison sentence for former city chairman Nguyen Duc Chung after he submitted 85 certificates of merits and medals.

On Tuesday afternoon, a representative of the Senior People’s Procuracy in Hanoi proposed a reduction in the penalty for Chung, but did not mention specifics.

City prosecutors noted that during the investigation and the testimony in court, Chung insisted that he only had a “normal relationship” with Bui Quang Huy, director of the Nhat Cuong Company, who was at the heart of the corruption case in which the former mayor was indicted.

Chung also insisted that he did not “pave the way” for the firm to win the contract of digitizing business registration documents in Hanoi.

However, prosecutors had argued that based on documents collected, they had determined that the Nhat Cuong Company had a “close relationship” with the former Hanoi chairman.

They said that upon Huy’s suggestion, Chung had called his subordinate, director of Department of Planning and Investment Nguyen Van Tu, three times, asking that the bidding process be put on hold. This move created conditions for Nhat Cuong to win two bidding packages later on, the prosecutors argued.

“Therefore, the first-instance court’s ruling that Chung had abused his position and power in performance of duties was justified and the three-year sentence was appropriate,” the prosecutors had noted.

Appealing the judgement, Chung submitted 85 certificates of merit and medals he had earned during his time with the police force and at the Hanoi People’s Committee as well as his parents’ certificates of merit for social and charity activities.

He also submitted three sets of documents showing that he now has rectal cancer with lung metastases.

At the court hearing Tuesday, the procuracy said Chung had “sincerely testified” in the case and deserved a reduced sentence.

According to documents submitted to the court, from 2016 to 2018, the Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment was the investor of two bidding packages to digitize business registration documents in the city.

When the department was preparing to invite tenders for the package in 2016, Chung directed the department, at the suggestion of Huy, to suspend the process at the last minute.

Later, the Nhat Cuong Company arranged other puppet bidders to join the bidding and won both packages in 2016 and 2017. It sold them later to the Dong Kinh Company, making nearly VND20 billion ($855,000) in profit.

The panel of judges had noted then that only 45% of business registration documents were uploaded on to the National Information Portal for Business Registration for digitalization, but the Department of Planning and Investment paid for 100%. This caused a loss of more than VND26 billion to the state budget.