HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam will take away the demise penalty for eight offenses beginning subsequent month, together with embezzlement and actions aimed toward overthrowing the federal government, parliament mentioned Wednesday, sparing the lifetime of a tycoon in a $12 billion fraud case.
The Nationwide Meeting, the nation’s lawmaking physique, unanimously ratified the modification to the Prison Code earlier Wednesday to abolish the demise penalty for the crimes, it mentioned in an announcement.
Different crimes that can not result in the demise penalty embody vandalizing state property, manufacturing faux drugs, jeopardizing peace, triggering invasive wars, espionage and carrying medicine, the official Vietnam Information Company mentioned.
The utmost sentence for these crimes will now be life imprisonment, the report mentioned.
Those that had been sentenced to demise for these offenses earlier than July 1 however haven’t but been executed can have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, the report added.
These will embody actual property tycoon Truong My Lan, the chairwoman of actual property developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, who was sentenced to demise final 12 months on embezzlement prices.
Lan’s attorneys didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
“In line with the modification of the Prison Code, her sentence will routinely be decreased to life imprisonment,” lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan, who is just not a part of Lan’s protection crew, advised Reuters.
Ten offenses will stay topic to capital punishment in Vietnam, together with homicide, treason, terrorism and the sexual abuse of kids, in keeping with the report. Drug trafficking may even stay a capital offense.
Capital punishment knowledge is a state secret in Vietnam and it isn’t recognized how many individuals are presently on demise row within the nation. Deadly injection is the one technique of execution after firing squads had been abolished in 2011.
