Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to life for fraud worth equivalent to 3% of country's GDP

Truong My Lan, centre, was tried alongside 33 co-defendants (Quynh Tran/VNExpress via AP)

A Vietnamese real estate tycoon has been convicted of fraudulently obtaining property worth billions of dollars and sentenced to life in prison, in a case that has been a centrepiece of the government’s crackdown on corruption.

Truong My Lan had previously been convicted in April by the same Ho Chi Minh City court of fraud amounting to 12.5 billion US dollars (£9.6 billion) — nearly 3% of the country’s gross domestic product — in a separate case and sentenced to death by lethal injection.