Former deputy health minister gets year off jail term

An appeals court in Hanoi has reduced the jail term for former deputy minister of health Truong Quoc Cuong to three years, one year less than sentence awarded by the court of first instance in May.

Cuong was found to “have lacked responsibility, causing serious consequences” in a counterfeit medicines scam.

The court stated Friday that defendant Cuong had mitigating circumstances like paying an additional VND500 million ($21,000) to the previous VND1.8 billion; and possessing 51 certificates of merit and an official letter from the Ministry of Health confirming that he had made contributions to the health sector.

The appellate court also noted that Cuong had made a sincere declaration.

Pham Anh Kiet, former general director of Saigon Pharmaceutical Company Limited, also has his jail term reduced by one year to 13 years that he got for for abusing his position and power in the performance of official duties.

The court upheld the first-instance court's sentences for other defendants in the case.

Under the instance court ruling in May, Nguyen Minh Hung, former chairman of VN Pharma Company, had received an additional 18 years in prison for the crime of “trading in counterfeit goods as medical drugs”.

Combined with a 17-year prison sentence in the counterfeit drug case of VN Pharma phase 1, the defendant must serve 30 years in prison, the highest level for a fixed-term penalty. Hung did not appeal against the ruling.

The jury found the case “particularly serious” because the goods was counterfeited to treat human diseases, of various types, most of which were antibiotics against severe infections.

Medicine is a special item, exclusively managed by the state. The defendants’ act “has severely affected the health care policy of the state towards the people and reduced the reputation of the health sector”.

The instance court ruled that, in 2008-2010, Nguyen Le Xuan Khang, a Vietnamese citizen of Canadian nationality, along with Nguyen Minh Hung, former chairman and general director of VN Pharma Company, forged documents on drugs labeled Health 2000 Canada, and hired two companies to apply for registration numbers.

Because of "lack of responsibility or personal motives", some officials of the Drug Administration of Vietnam committed violations during the appraisal and approval process.

As a result, seven counterfeit medicines labeled Health 2000 Canada were granted registration numbers, while many new drugs have been traded and imported via many fake contracts, annexes and invoices. In this case, drugs totaling 838,100 boxes had their price raised from more than $1.2 million when imported to more than $2.5 million.

More than 600,000 boxes of counterfeit drugs were sold by VN Pharma to businesses, hospitals and pharmacies, illicitly earning the firm more than VND31.5 billion ($1.36 million).

In the case, Khang reached agreements to sell six counterfeit medicines labeled Health 2000 Canada to five domestic enterprises through 36 contracts. The total amount was nearly 1.6 million boxes, worth $4.6 million.

Khang remains on the run.