Hong Kong property tycoon Eric Chu seeks court's 'mercy' for death row wife Truong My Lan

The two are appealing to the People’s High Court of HCMC sentences awarded to them in April for embezzling money from Saigon Commercial Bank over a decade.

He was sentenced to nine years in prison for abetting Lan, the 68-year-old chairwoman of the Van Thinh Phat Group, who received the death sentence for being the mastermind of the scheme.

The chairman of property developer Times Square told the court Tuesday he has been in Vietnam for 34 years, or half his entire life, and has trained many people to serve his wife’s country and helped attract hundreds of thousands of tourists.

"I became a son-in-law of this country because of my wife, Truong My Lan." She has always been a responsible and patriotic individual, he said.

Lan and her niece Truong Hue Van worked tirelessly during the Covid-19 pandemic to secure 25 million vaccine doses for the country, saving millions of lives in HCMC, he claimed.

They also helped build many field hospitals and the city has acknowledge their effort, he said.

"My wife accepted an invitation from the authorities to restructure an ailing bank. Unfortunately, it did not succeed and that is why she has to stand trial today.

"My family accepts the verdict of the judges. But please show my wife mercy and give her the lowest possible sentence."

Prosecutors have recommended reducing Chu’s sentence from nine years to seven or eight.

Van, who got a 17-year sentence in April for abetting her aunt, told the court that Lan has made major contributions to society. "She has touched the lives of thousands of unfortunate people and saved millions of lives."

Everything Lan did was to save SCB, she said. "During the trial the words ‘shell companies’ and ‘appropriation of cash’ were mentioned repeatedly, but, seen from a different perspective, they mean ‘restructuring debts’."

She asked for commuting the sentences of all those convicted. Van was found guilty of establishing shell companies to help Lan siphon off money from SCB. Prosecutors have recommended commuting her sentence to 14-15 years.

But they have maintained that Lan’s death sentence should stand and the court should reject her request for commutation.

Last month, in a separate trial, she was awarded a life sentence for "fraudulent appropriation of assets" through bond issuances and illegal cross-border money transfers among other crimes.