The People’s Court of Ha Tinh province has just opened the first instance criminal trial of defendant Phan Dinh Cuong (born 1965 – Former Chairman of People’s Committee of Thach Bang communeLoc Ha district) residing in Khanh Yen residential group, Loc Ha town, and accomplices: Pham Cong Thanh (born in 1958, residing in Loc Ha town), Tran Van Hieu (born in 1979, residing in Loc Ha town), Bui Ngoc Anh (born in 1989, residing in Ich Hau commune, Loc Ha district) for the crime of “Abuse of power while on duty”.
According to the indictment, in 2014, although the competent authority had not yet approved the planning and land use plan and there was no policy of the People’s Committee of Loc Ha district on considering the allocation of residential land to households and individuals without auctioning land use rights, Phan Dinh Cuong directed Pham Cong Thanh (a part-time tourism service officer), Tran Van Hieu (chief accountant) and Bui Ngoc Anh (accountant) to coordinate with the commune’s land officials to advise the People’s Committee of the commune to announce the determination of land prices at 21 locations in the area.
Cuong’s motive was to illegally collect land money from households who wanted to buy land and asked for land allocation in Thach Bang commune and other communes in Loc Ha district.
| Defendants at trial. Photo: Duong Chung. |
Accordingly, land areas are priced from 25 – 200 million VND for areas from 126m2 – 250m2On that basis, Cuong directed the commune People’s Committee officials to widely inform people that if they want to grant land or buy land, they should come to the commune People’s Committee to meet Cuong for consideration and resolution.
From January 2014 to July 2016, Cuong directed Pham Cong Thanh to create 122 land fee receipts for 91 individuals; Hieu approved 7 receipts for 6 individuals; Anh approved 115 receipts for 87 individuals and then collected a total of more than 12.5 billion VND. This amount was collected without a notice of financial obligation performance from the tax authority, spent against regulations for many different purposes, not accounted for through the treasury and is currently unrecoverable.
After 91 individuals paid more than 12.5 billion VND, Phan Dinh Cuong directed the accountant to leave the cash fund and create 417 payment vouchers with the amount of more than 11 billion VND. The remaining amount, Cuong directed not to record in the accounting books and create payment vouchers but to withdraw the cash fund through handwritten and typed proposal vouchers that did not follow the financial and budget management regime.
To avoid being detected by authorities, Cuong directed Anh to prepare two commune budget settlement reports.
The investigation results determined that Phan Dinh Cuong and his accomplices committed the act of “Abuse of power while performing official duties” causing damage to 81 victims. In this case, Phan Dinh Cuong committed the crime as the mastermind, the remaining defendants played the role of accomplices.
At the trial, the defendants admitted that the pressure during the performance of their duties was the main cause of their violations. In addition, the crime was also due to subjectivity, and at the time of committing the act, their awareness was not yet complete.
After deliberation, the panel sentenced Phan Dinh Cuong to 6 years and 6 months in prison; Bui Ngoc Anh and Pham Cong Thanh each to 4 years and 6 months in prison; and Tran Van Hieu to 36 months in prison with a suspended sentence for the crime of “Abuse of power while performing official duties”.
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