Vietnam officials go on trial over Covid-19 flight bribes

By AFP December 24, 2024 | 01:00 am PT

People stand before the Hanoi People's Court, Dec. 24, 2024. Photo by VnExpress/Danh Lam

More than a dozen Vietnamese officials went on trial in Hanoi on Tuesday for alleged corruption over repatriation flights during the Covid-19 pandemic, a scandal that saw 54 people jailed last year.

Last year, 54 officials and businesspeople were found guilty of receiving, offering or acting as the go-between for bribes that state media said totalled US$9.5 million.

They included four former senior officials at the ministries of foreign affairs, health and public security, who were handed life sentences.

Among the 17 facing court Tuesday on charges of bribery, power abuse and hiding of criminals are transport ministry and provincial officials, as well as travel company employees.

The trial is expected to last about a week.

At the height of the pandemic in early 2020 -- when Vietnam had closed its borders to almost everyone bar returning citizens -- the defendants allegedly gave or took bribes to help people get seats on repatriation flights.

At the time, returnees faced complicated entry procedures, expensive flights and quarantine costs.

Last year, a Hanoi mother told AFP how she had spent over $10,000 to get her teenage daughter back to Vietnam from a boarding school in Europe at the peak of the pandemic.