A court in Vietnam sentenced former Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long to 18 years in prison in connection with a Coronavirus test kit scandal, state-controlled VNExpress reported Friday.
He was found guilty of accepting bribes of more than 51 billion VND (US$2.1 million).
Long’s secretary Nguyen Huynh received a nine-year sentence.
Former Minister of Science and Technology Chu Ngoc Anh was sentenced to three years in prison, the report said. Former Hai Duong Provincial Party Committee Secretary Pham Xuan Thang received a five-year term.
They were prosecuted in connection with the Viet A scandal, which involved the company’s chief executive officer bribing officials the equivalent of US$34 million to win contracts to sell substandard kits to hospitals at a 45% markup, earning his company US$172 million in profits.
The scandal came to light when CEO Phan Quoc Viet was arrested in December 2021, along with four staff and the director and chief accountant at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office in the northern province of Hai Duong.
According to Friday afternoon’s verdict, Viet received the stiffest sentence at 29 years.
Also sentenced was former deputy director of the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Department of Science and Technology Trinh Thanh Hung, who was jailed for 14 years. Former Ministry of Health Director Nguyen Minh Tuan received eight years and another former Ministry of Health Director Nguyen Nam Lien was sentenced to seven years in prison. Pham Duy Tuyen, the former director of CDC Hai Duong, received a 13-year sentence.
The high profile trial is the one of the keystones of Vietnam Communist Party Secretary General’s Nguyen Phu Trong’s “blazing furnace” anti-corruption drive, which has proved popular with Vietnamese people tired of bribery and favoritism in the party.
The scandal also claimed the job of Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who was forced to step down in January 2023 and was removed from the Politburo to take responsibility for corruption cases that happened during his term in office.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
