August 29, 2024
On June 7, 2024, the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Investigation Agency announced that it had temporarily detained journalist Truong Huy San and lawyer Tran Dinh Trien.
Nguyen Hoa Binh took the oath of office as Deputy Prime Minister and lawyer Tran Dinh Trien.
According to the investigation agency, the two defendants took advantage of democratic freedoms to post articles on Facebook that infringed on the interests of the State and the rights and legitimate interests of organizations and individuals.
After being arrested, both of their Facebook pages disappeared.
Thoibao.de reposted the Facebook article by journalist Truong Huy San criticizing To Lam, which led to his arrest.
On his Facebook page, lawyer Tran Dinh Trien had a number of articles criticizing Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court Nguyen Hoa Binh. This is the reason why lawyer Tran Dinh Trien was arrested.
Lawyer Trien also said:
“Nguyen Hoa Binh and Minister To Lam were classmates in the same university class with me; in work, there was a time when they were in the same force, or in different professions but related to each other.”
Thus, Trien was arrested by his own classmates.
On the occasion of Nguyen Hoa Binh’s recent appointment as Permanent Deputy Prime Minister (August 26), Thoibao.de republished an article by lawyer Tran Dinh Trien on April 23, 2024:
Nguyen Hoa Binh- the best things when being the Chief Justice
Nguyen Hoa Binh was a classmate in the same university class with me; in work, there was a time when they were in the same force, or in different professions but related to each other. Therefore, I understand Nguyen Hoa Binh from his education, qualifications, strengths and weaknesses, moral qualities and personality, etc. I present some of his “good points” here to be proud to everyone that I have a friend with whom studied in the same university course:
1-/ He is the first Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court of our state with the highest position in the Party: Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Party Central Committee;
2-/ He is the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court with the highest academic degree: Professor and Doctor;
3-/ He is the first Chief Justice to come up with the idea: to choose and build a statue of the “god of justice” at the headquarters of the Court system from the district level and above;
4-/ He is the Chief Justice of many levels of courts, trials (first instance and appeal); but does not allow relatives of defendants and litigants; does not allow people to attend the trial; Although the Constitution stipulates that all citizens have the right to attend court sessions, except in cases where the court sessions are prescribed by law to be closed; or the case is of a special nature that requires security and order to be protected during the trial;
5-/ The Chief Justice creates the conclusions of the judgment, or the catchphrase of the Judges is: “Although there are procedural violations, it does not change the nature of the case.”
“Does the defendant have any conflicts with witness A or B?” Creating disregard for the provisions of the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code on handling violations of individuals conducting proceedings; some procedural provisions requiring the return of the investigation file for re-investigation or the annulment of the judgment,… become invalid in practice.
Evaluating evidence on “non-contradictory” testimony has become a catchphrase of many judges meaning objective; disregarding the provisions of the law “the testimony of the accused, defendant,… is considered evidence when consistent with other objective evidence;” Convictions based on testimony alone, regardless of other objective evidence;
6-/ The Chief Justice is criticized by many people, intellectuals and social networks for the most wrongful trials of the court system; causing people to lose confidence in the highest court system;
7-/ The Chief Justice requests the most state budget to build the most magnificent court headquarters from district to supreme level (public opinion that construction projects often have a 10 to 30% kickback, which is unlikely to happen with court projects, because the court is the scale of justice). Some high-rise courts have elevators; but the elevators are only for court staff, while the stairs are for the people, even a litigant over 80 years old holds on to each step to the 5th and 6th floors;
8-/ The Chief Justice leaves the most impression on social networks, with clips specifically mentioning his wife, children and huge personal assets without any answer as to whether it is true or false?
9-/ The Chief Justice has a very young son who has been appointed as Vice Chairman of the Gia Lai provincial People’s Committee;
10-/ The Chief Justice will go down in the history of Vietnam’s litigation; regardless of the opinions of the competent authorities of the National Assembly, the Supreme People’s Procuracy, lawyers, the media and public opinion, evidence and law,… on two cases with sufficient evidence of wrongful convictions: the case of Ho Duy Hai in Long An and the case of the mother and her chicken shipping girl in Dien Bien province.
11-/ The trial was open to the public (except for closed cases) but the press and lawyers and others were prohibited from recording despite the provisions of the Constitution, the Civil Code, the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code, the Press Law, the Lawyers Law;…
Therefore, when the trial is wrong, there are violations of the law at the trial, or the Trial Panel abuses its power, etc. when being denounced or complained about, the answer is “there is no evidence” to review the case; and handle the violations of the judge and the trial panel (This provision has not been applied in any country in the world).
(End of article)
After the above article on April 23, 2024, lawyer Tran Dinh Trien had another article at the end of April, about the case of Xuyen Viet Oil Company. The article is titled:
Investigation expansion needed in Le Duc Tho case involved Nguyen Hoa Binh’s son
In the article, lawyer Trien raised the issue: “Recently, the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Investigation Agency initiated a case and probed Le Duc Tho (former member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Ben Tre provincial Party Committee; once held the position: General Director, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade – Vietinbank). Public opinion reflects that Le Duc Tho’s family has thousands of billions of dong. The question that needs to be answered is: where did that money come from?”
According to lawyer Trien, during the time when Le Duc Tho was General Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietinbank there are needs to inspect, investigate and clarify the following issues: How many companies did Vietinbank establish? Which businesses did it buy shares or form joint ventures with? Where did the capital come from? How was the accounting done? Where did the profits go? etc.
Notably, according to lawyer Trien, “the One Member Limited Liability Company managing the fund of the Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade is one of the satellite companies of Vietinbank, with Nguyen Tuan Anh (currently Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Gia Lai province, son of Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh – Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court) as Chairman of the “capital management” company for a long time, and has “invested capital” with an extremely large amount of money.”
Lawyer Trien continued to ask: Did Le Duc Tho and Nguyen Tuan Anh collude with each other? Did they share the profits? Did they take advantage of Nguyen Hoa Binh’s influence, and did Binh intervene as some petitions raised?
Recently, on August 27, one day after Nguyen Hoa Binh became Permanent Deputy Prime Minister, the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Investigation Agency issued the conclusion of the investigation into the case of Xuyen Viet Oil Trading, Transport and Tourism Company Limited. In which, Le Duc Tho was accused of receiving a bribe of more than $1 million, being given billion-dollar golf tools, a Mercedes S450 car and a Patek Philippe watch, during the time he held the positions of chairman of VietinBank and secretary of Ben Tre province.
But the investigation conclusion of the Ministry of Public Security completely did not mention the role of Nguyen Tuan Anh, Nguyen Hoa Binh’s son.
Thu Phuong – Thoibao.de
