Lawyer Le Van Hoa, former head of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s Central Commission of Internal Affairs has accused Chief Judge of the Hanoi People’s Court Nguyen Huu Chinh of “covering up criminal subordinates” in a famous case that lasted ten years.
Lawyer Le Van Hoa defends the legal rights of two leaders of the Laos-Vietnam Mineral Joint Venture Company who were convicted by the People’s Court of Ba Dinh District, Hanoi of “faking the seal” of this joint venture.
In the third first-instance hearing in February this year, Mr. Thai Luong Tri, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company was sentenced to 2 years 10 months, and 21 days, while Mr. Duong Minh Hai was sentenced to 4 years and 5 months and 12 days.
These prison terms are equal to the time the two men were detained for investigation in 2009.
Lawyer Le Van Hoa said that right after the trial, he sent a petition to the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the Supreme People’s Court to denounce the Trial Panel of the People’s Court of Ba Dinh district and two individuals named Nguyen Quang Trung- Director of the People’s Procuracy of Ba Dinh district and his deputy, Mr. Tran Manh Ha, who presented procuracy in the trial because they prosecuted two innocent individuals and omitted the crime of others.
The lawyer also denounced the district court and the two above officials for serious violations of the Criminal Procedure Code 2015, according to the provisions that the district court does not have the authority to adjudicate Vietnamese people committing crimes abroad, and only a provincial/city court or higher can do that.
Mr. Hoa told a reporter from Radio Free Asia (RFA) by phone:
“After I denounced, the Supreme People’s Procuracy transferred my denunciation to Mr. Nguyen Huu Chinh, Chief Judge of the Hanoi Court for settlement according to his competence.
For more than half a year, the Chief Judge of the Hanoi Court has not replied to my denunciation. Until today [October 3], Mr. Nguyen Huu Chinh did not answer whether or not to settle my petition, so I think that Mr. Nguyen Huu Chinh is seriously violating the law by covering up his subordinates.
I have sent my petition to the leaders of the party, the state, and the authorities to request clarification of my denunciation against Mr. Nguyen Huu Chinh.”
Lawyer Le Van Hoa, who used to be a senior officer with the rank of head of Department 1 of the Party Central Committee’s Internal Affairs Commission when Nguyen Ba Thanh was head of the commission, said that the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuracy also guilty of letting the People’s Court of Ba Dinh district hear the case of “forging the seal of Laos.”
In this case, Mr. Thai Luong Tri is considered the main defendant, a citizen of Nghe An province, and Thai Duong Company Limited of which he is a director has based in Nghe An province.
Lawyer Le Van Hoa said that the People’s Court of Nghe An province should have been the body to hear Mr. Thai Luong Tri’s case, according to the provisions of Vietnamese law.
He affirmed that his clients are completely innocent and will maintain his defensive position in the upcoming appeal session held by the People’s Court of Hanoi.
The evidence is that the Ministry of Security of Laos has an official dispatch confirming that Mr. Thai Luong Tri and Duong Minh Hai do not use the fake seal of the joint venture.
Translation of the official reply of the Household Management and Construction Department under the Ministry of Security of Laos dated May 30, 2022, confirming the seal of the Laos-Vietnam Mineral Joint Stock Company, used to sign the investment contract between the Lao government and the company in 2008 was “in accordance with the rules and regulations.”
This translation is then stamped with a consular legalization certificate from the Vietnamese Embassy in Laos.
To verify the information, the reporter contacted the mobile phone numbers of Chief Judge Nguyen Huu Chinh, Deputy Chief Procurator of the People’s Procuracy of Ba Dinh District Tran Manh Ha, and Deputy Chief Judge of the People’s Court of Bac Tu Liem district Le Thi Minh Hue. – who presided over the trial in February, but no one answered the phone.
In the past 10 years, lawyer Le Van Hoa has successfully defended Mr. Thai Luong Tri and Duong Minh Hai from charges of “abusing trust to appropriate property” related to the investment of Thai Duong Co. in mine exploiting Xieng Khouang, Laos.
In the first instance court on July 14, 2011, the Hanoi People’s Court convicted Tri and Hai of “abusing trust to appropriate property” and “Forging the seal of Laos” and sentenced Mr. Tri to 23 years in prison and Mr. Hai to 17 years in prison.
About two years later, the Supreme People’s Court annulled the first instance judgment for a re-investigation.
In 2016, Mr. Tri and Hai were respectively sentenced to 20 years in prison and 15 years in prison for the two crimes mentioned above. However, in the second appeal hearing a year later, the Higher People’s Court in Hanoi annulled the second-instance judgment to request a re-investigation.
In 2019, the Security Investigation Agency – Ministry of Public Security suspended the investigation into the allegations of “abuse of trust to appropriate property” against the two men.
Only the charge of “Forging the seal of Laos” remained and the Supreme People’s Procuracy transferred this case to the People’s Court of Ba Dinh district for trial.
Tri and Hai were detained for a total of eight years and were later released on bail.
This is also the judgment that the Ba Dinh District Court handed down to the two men for the act of “Forging seals and documents of organizations and agencies” which made lawyer Le Van Hoa think that this is a form of temporary legalization of detention of his two clients.
In 2012, when he was Deputy Director of the Internal Affairs Department of the party’s Central Office, Mr. Le Van Hoa discovered wrongdoing in the case of Thai Luong Tri and proposed the Politburo to direct clarification from December 25, 2012.
Mr. Hoa announced his departure from the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2017, one of the reasons he gave was “to protest against the leaders of the Central Office and the Central Commission for Internal Affairs for failing to deal with his petition in the Thai Luong Tri case.”
According to him, the leadership of the Central Commission for Internal Affairs, who let loose management and allowed officials of Department 1 to intervene in the case, was the cause of this particularly serious wrongdoing case.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
