The Supreme People’s Court yesterday upheld a 13-year sentence passed last August against Bui Tien Dung, the notorious director of state road-building PMU18 who was found guilty of gambling away US$759,800 and of attempting bribery.
The Court in Ha Noi rejected a proposal by the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office to reduce Dung’s sentence by six months.
Dung, former director of the Ministry of Transport’s Project Management Unit No 18 (PMU 18), was initially sentenced at a first-instance hearing to six years in jail for gambling on international football pools (gambling is a criminal offense in Viet Nam) and seven years for his failed bribery attempts to cover up the crime.
After he was arrested in January last year, Dung allotted around VND1.2 billion (US$75,000) into a ‘bribery fund’.
Dung yesterday told the court that he placed around 10 bets through bookie Nguyen Van Hong between October and November 2005. Hong was also manager of Thang Long Real Estate and Commercial Limited Company.
The highest single stake was worth an astronomical US$268,000, Dung admitted.
Hong, originally sentenced to 7 years for “organizing gambling”, saw his term reduced to six at the appeal yesterday.
Dung also told the court he betted some 30 times via another bookie.
Another defendant - Nguyen Dinh Toan, former lieutenant colonel and deputy police chief of the Nga Tu So Ward in Ha Noi’s Dong Da District had his sentence cut by one year to 2. Toan was found guilty of taking over US$11,000 from Dung to try to bribe investigators on Dung’s behalf.
As for fines, the Court agreed to lower the fine for Dung’s gambling activity from VND50 million to VND30 million. However, it upheld a fine of VND1.168 billion (over US$72,700) against Dung for bribery attempts.
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