HCM CITY – The HCM City People’s Court handed down sentences ranging from five years to life to five Vietnamese defendants on charges of misappropriating assets and violating loan provision regulations at a trial on May 31.

Nguyễn Đức Trí, former director of KTT Construction Design Advisory Co. Ltd, was given a life sentence and Trương Xuân Quang, former chief accountant at KTT, was sentenced to 20 years for swindling and misappropriating assets, the court said.

The court also said that Trí and Quang must pay in compensation VNĐ231 billion (US$10.5 million) in both principal and interest to the Bình Chánh branch of the State-owned Việt Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank Bình Chánh).

Nguyễn Văn Lợi, former deputy director of Agribank Bình Chánh, Trần Thị Hoàng Yến, former deputy head of Agribank Bình Chánh’s business plan division, and Nguyễn Thị Thanh Nga, former credit staff member of Agribank Bình Chánh, were sentenced to seven, six and five years in prison, respectively, for violating loan provision regulations of credit institutions.

At the court, Trí and Quang said they took advantage of their acquaintance with the late Lý Văn Chức, former director of Agribank Bình Chánh, to forge a dossier on a project to build the Central Park residential area in District 7 in order to borrow VNĐ96 billion at Agribank Bình Chánh.

The project was not approved by authorised agencies.

Later Trí and Quang forged construction material purchase contracts, which were part of the dossier, to ask Agribank Bình Chánh to disburse an additional VNĐ10 billion.

Of the total VNĐ116 billion, Trí and his accomplices misappropriated more than VNĐ99 billion.

In June 2015, the HCM City People’s Court sentenced Lợi, Yến and Nga to eight, seven and eight years in prison, respectively, in another case in which they were found guilty of violating loan provision regulations of credit institutions. – VNS