April 29, 1999
Web posted at: 1:58 a.m. EDT (0558 GMT)

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, April 29 (CNN) -- Family members wept outside the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on Thursday after 74 defendants were sentenced to terms ranging up to death for involvement in the country's biggest smuggling scandal.

The presiding judge condemned two men to death over the fraud, in which company executives colluded with dozens of former customs officials and police to smuggle goods worth $71.3 million into communist-ruled Vietnam from 1994-1997.

Six life sentences were handed down while it appeared four people would be freed because they were sentenced to either terms less than the time they had spent in custody or they received suspended sentences. Court officials were not immediately available to clarify their situation.

After the verdicts were read out, scores of onlookers climbed trees to get a glimpse of the convicted as they were led into police trucks before being driven away to jail.

Corruption, smuggling and embezzlement in Vietnam have emerged as major problems in recent years and the government and the Communist Party had vowed to get tough.

More than 70 people go on trial next week in the so-called Minh Phung-EPCO corruption case that caused losses of some $280 million, the biggest graft scandal in Vietnam's history.

The two men sentenced to death on Thursday were the former chief anti-smuggling investigator in the Ho Chi Minh City customs department, Phung Long That, and the owner of the private Tan Truong Sanh company, Tran Dam.

Dam, accused of smuggling some 900 containers of electronic consumer goods and cars, allegedly recruited officials from nine state-owned trading firms and bribed customs and other officials to allow the goods into the country.

Many other defendants were given lengthy jail terms.

Some 200 police clamped tight security around the People's Court as crowds gathered in the building yard to hear the verdicts read out over loudspeakers.

Even though graft and smuggling are endemic in Vietnam, the breadth of the scandal caused a sensation across the nation and state-run Ho Chi Minh Television broadcast the proceedings live to its viewers in the south.

A young girl cried hysterically on Thursday as a composed Tran Dam was pushed into a police truck. "My father is innocent," she cried. Women comforting the girl said she was Dam's daughter.

The young girl called on the country's late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh to save her father. "Uncle Ho, if you are holy, rescue my father," she screamed.

Dozens of police used shields to push onlookers away as several trucks carrying the convicted left the court grounds.

Court officials refused to allow Reuters inside the courtroom, even though Vietnam's Foreign Ministry had earlier given permission to cover the event.

The defendants are entitled to appeal the verdicts, although Vietnamese higher courts generally uphold decisions made in big graft and smuggling trials.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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