Call for death sentence for mafia boss

PROSECUTORS have demanded the death sentence for Vietnam’s most powerful mafia boss and seven of his underlings in a trial the government has touted as proof of its determination to stamp out corruption.

The People’s Court in the southern business capital of Ho Chi Minh City was asked by the prosecuting panel to hand down death sentences to Nam Cam and four of his lieutenants for murder, according to state media.

Nam Cam is accused of killing another mafia boss and of organising an acid attack on an underworld rival.

Prosecutors said yesterday they were also seeking the death penalty for three other gang members, including his son-in-law, for bribing police and government officials, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

The formal indictments presented to the five-member bench contained a summary of evidence heard since the trial opened on February 25.

A total of 155 people are on trial for their alleged involvement in Vietnam’s biggest ever corruption and organised crime trial. Among those appearing in the dock besides Nam Cam are 21 state employees, who include two expelled members of the ruling Communist Party’s powerful Central Committee, 13 senior police officers and four former prosecutors.

The court was told that Nam Cam had confessed to ordering the assassination in October 2000 of rival gang boss Vu Hoang Dung, a reputed lesbian from the northeastern port city of Haiphong nicknamed Dung Ha. Prosecutors said the 55-year former dock worker and veteran of the South Vietnamese army had also admitted ordering an underling to throw acid in the face of the city’s elderly underworld figure Le Ngoc Lam in July 1999.

In their indictment, prosecutors recounted Nam Cam's declaration that he had earned 2.42 billion dong (€142,300) between 1997 and 2001 from several gambling dens in Ho Chi Minh City of which more than a third was handed out in bribes to local police. His stated earnings are thought to be a drop in the ocean compared to the huge amounts of money he amassed on a daily basis from the dozens of dens he controlled in the city and the protection money he received from smaller gangs.

Prosecutors also asked the court to issue death sentences to Nguyen Viet Hung, Dung Ha’s assassin, and three others accused of killing a policeman and his friend in January 2000. Nam Cam was arrested in May 1995 and sent to a re-education camp, but was released seven months early from his three-year sentence following intervention by senior officials alleged to be in his pay. He was re-arrested in December 2001 and the subsequent investigation revealed his connections with high-ranking officials.

Revelations about the patronage networks that protected his criminal activities plunged the party into its worst-ever crisis and severely eroded its moral and ideological legitimacy.

Hanoi has touted the trial as proof it is serious about tackling insidious corruption, a major grievance among Vietnam’s population.

Sentencing is expected on June 4 but many analysts and diplomats say the trial is pure political theatre with the outcome already decided.