Reuters
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Vietnam will remove the death penalty for eight crimes starting next month, including embezzlement and activities aimed at overthrowing the government, Congress said Wednesday that it saved the big names from a $12 billion fraud case.
The national legal groups, which are the parliamentary assembly, said in a statement that they unanimously ratified an amendment to the criminal law on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty for crimes.
Other crimes that have not led to the death penalty include the destruction of state property, the manufacture of fake medicine, the dangers of peace, triggering wars of aggression, spying and transporting drugs.
The report said the maximum sentence for these crimes would now be life sentences.
Those who were sentenced to death for these crimes by July 1, but who have not yet been executed will appoint their sentences to life sentences, the report added.
These include my LAN real estate tycoon Truong, chairman of Van Fat Holdings Group, a real estate developer who was sentenced to death for embezzlement last year.
LAN’s lawyers did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
“According to the Criminal Code, her sentence will automatically be reduced to life sentence,” Ngo Anh Tuan, a lawyer who is not part of LAN’s defense team, told Reuters.
The 10 crimes that are subject to death penalty in Vietnam, including murder, rebellion, terrorism and child sexual abuse, remain 10 crimes, according to the report. Drug trafficking remains a capital crime.
The death penalty data is a secret from the Vietnamese province, and it is unknown how many people are currently on death row inmates in the country. Lethal injections are the only method of execution after the dismissal force was abolished in 2011.
