A
Vietnamese court on Monday sentenced a disgraced banking tycoon to 30 years in
jail over a multi-million dollar scandal that shocked the nation's already
fragile financial markets.
Nguyen Duc
Kien, 50, was found guilty of fraud, tax evasion, illegal trade and
"deliberate wrongdoing causing serious consequences", according to
the verdict read at the Hanoi People's Court.
"The
accused was not honest and so must be given serious punishment in line with his
crime," court president Nguyen Huu Chinh said at the end of the two-week
trial Monday.
Kien, who
denied the charges against him, was given 30 years in jail and handed a 75
billion dong ($3.5 million) fine.
The
flamboyant multi-millionaire went on trial alongside seven other defendants,
all top bankers at Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), which counts global banking
giant Standard Chartered (HKSE: 2888.HK - news) as one of its "strategic
partners".
The other
defendants were given sentences of between two and eight years. The most senior
of the other defendants, the former director of ACB, Ly Xuan Hai, was given
eight years.
According
to the verdict, Kien -- a shareholder in some of Vietnam's largest financial
institutions and a founder of ACB -- and his accomplices caused losses of $67
million through illegal cross-bank deposits and investments.
Most of the
cash vanished when Kien ordered his staff to make deposits at the Vietnam Joint
Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank).
An employee
from that bank has already been sentenced to life imprisonment for fraud.
Prosecutors
also accused Kien of forging documents to defraud the top steel firm Hoa Phat
Group of $12.5 million.
The banker
rose to public prominence as a vocal critic of corruption in Vietnamese
football, using his role as chairman of Hanoi Football Club to sound off
against Vietnam's Football Federation.
When Kien
was arrested in August 2012 it sent "shockwaves across the country",
state media reported at the time, and caused ACB's share price to plunge.
Experts
interpreted the arrest of the high-profile banker as part of bitter infighting
within the ruling Communist Party.
Kien had
been seen as an ally of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and has become the
subject of intense speculation on blogs over his business dealings with Dung's
daughter.
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