Than Nien News reports that all sixteen defendants in the adoption corruption case in Nam Dinh province have been found guilty. Six were sentenced to jail sentences of two and a half to four years.
The six were found guilty of “abuse of power in public duty, said Nguyen Tien Hung, vice-president of the Nam Dinh People’s Court.
Vu Dinh Khan, former director of Truc Ninh District Social Welfare Center, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail while his counterpart Tran Thi Luong in Y Yen District got three and a half years.
Truong Cong Lich and Vu Dinh Loi, former heads of two commune medical stations in Y Yen District, got three years and two years respectively, while Vu Van Kiem, accountant and cashier of the Truc Ninh social center was sentenced to two years in prison.
Resident Tran Trong Lam was sentenced to three years in prison for procuring babies for the officers.
Ten others in the scandal received suspended sentences of between 15 and 18 months at the end of a trial which began last Tuesday.
A total of 18 officers were prosecuted in the case. Local police have put a warrant for two who have escaped since the case was busted July last year, three months after the US embassy in Hanoi reported on endemic baby-selling and graft in Vietnam’s adoption system.
Each officer involved in the case earned millions of dong from the adoptions.
Vu Dinh Ky, former head of a commune medical center, received 28 million dong (US$1,593) for faking the documents of 14 newborn children but told the court “it was just to help the babies.
VVAI has so far been unable to ascertain how many of the 266 children involved in this case were adopted to the United States or which of the three U.S. agencies licensed in Nam Dinh at that time facilitated the adoption of those children.
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