05 judgments sentenced to life imprisonment by the Court of Vietnam

It can be said that life imprisonment is the death penalty commutation, and its indefiniteness is not absolute. This is reflected in the fact that being sentenced to life in prison is not required to serve life imprisonment. Persons sentenced to life imprisonment can still have their serving time reduced because of good reform.

Due to the severe nature of this punishment, Vietnamese law does not apply to juvenile offenders, demonstrating the humanity of our country's law.

Below are 05 sentences, corresponding to 05 different types of crimes that the offenders were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Court.

1. Judgment 668/2020/HSS-PT dated 12/11/2020 for illegal trading in narcotics

- Level of trial: Appellate

- Judicial body: High People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City

- Summary of the case: On December 23, 2015, Chung Nguyen QA was illegally storing narcotics to resell to others when he was caught red-handed. Contained in An's bag, which is worn on her body, there are 02 nylon packages containing drugs in solid form with a weight of 49,8102 grams, of type Methamphetamine. An confessed that the drugs in solid form were bought by Tran Thi Kim U and Phan Van T. Based on A's confession, conducted an urgent search and arrest for Tran Thi Kim U and Phan Van T and detect a lot of drug packages in solid form with large volume.

- Court decisions:

+ Sentencing Phan Van T to life in prison for the crime of illegally buying and selling drugs

+ Sentencing defendants Tran Thi Kim U and Chung Nguyen QA to 20 years in prison each.

2. Judgment 81/2020/HS-PT dated 19/05/2020 for murder and intentionally causing injury

- Level of trial: Appellate

- Judicial body: High People's Court in Da Nang

- Summary of the case: "D took a three-piece stick, a spray bottle and four knives into his pocket, then drove a motorbike from home to N's "N Spa" store to kill N. D took a three-piece stick and a knife to go in and rip off the shop's latch. Seeing this, Phan Thi Thu H (N's sister) came to intervene and was pushed away by D, using a knife to stab her chin once. D went to the place where N was standing as the head for the guest to use three consecutive hits, hitting her shoulder, arm and back several times in a row. When N ran to the front, D chased after her, H used her hand to pull D, then D stabbed H in the left hand with a knife and shoved H down and threw the knife back. D chased to the end of the room, took a three-way stick, hit N's arm and back several times, ran back, but was pulled by D by the collar and then holding two knives tied together by an elastic band and stabbed him in the right shoulder, said: "I beat you to death". After that, D continued to use 02 knives to stab N's left chest, making a knife broken, the blade stuck in N's body. D dropped the handle and the knife he was holding on the ground, took the other knife and stabbed it, one hit to N's right chest and one to N's left chest, breaking the blade, D threw away the knife handle, took a stick three times and hit N's left leg several times. D went forward and came back to find N dead, then throw away the stick and go to the police station of town C to surrender."

Court decision: Sentencing defendant Pham Le Duc D to life in prison for the crime of “Murder”.

3. Judgment 533/2019/HS-PT dated September 10, 2019 for murder and child rape

- Level of trial: Appellate

- Judicial body: High People's Court in Hanoi

Summary of the case:

Ly Van H and Vuong Thi Ph did not register their marriage but lived together as husband and wife. Due to suspicion, and jealousy, H and Ph had an argument, H used his hand to push on Ph's shoulder blades, causing Ph to fall backward, H immediately sat on top of his stomach and used both hands to hit Ph's chest. Then take the knife and slash 1 time in the direction from top to bottom into the left cheek area of ​​Ph. Ph ran away, H followed him with a knife and slashed once more in the direction from top to bottom, hitting the back 1/3 of the right arm and the lower back of the right shoulder blade. Then H went to the commune police station to surrender. At the same time, during the investigation, defendant H also confessed to having intercourse 04 (Four) times with her granddaughter Ly Thi L4, born in 2007 (L4 is H's biological child).

Court decision: Sentencing defendant H to 18 years in prison for Murder; Life in prison for child rape. The combined penalty for both crimes is life imprisonment.

4. Judgment 15/2021/HSST dated February 5, 2021 for fraud and appropriation of property

- Level of trial: First instance

- Judicial body: People's Court of Dak Lak province

- Summary of the case: Due to a loss in business, Do Duc Th had to borrow money from many people with high-interest rates to repay the debt, leading to financial imbalance. In 2015, although he was unable to pay his debts, he still gave false information to people who borrowed money to do business, invest in power projects, due to bank maturity, etc. After borrowing money, Th did not invest in a business, but used the loan to pay the principal and interest to the previous borrowers as well as continue to buy and sell coffee on the coffee futures floor and was losses. At the end of 2016, because there was no money to pay the debt, Th ran away from the locality. With the above tricks, defendant Do Duc Th performed 3 fraud cases, appropriating a total amount of VND 8,822,000,000.

Court decision: Sentencing Do Duc Th to life in prison for the crime of fraudulently appropriating property

5. Judgment 349/2018/HSPT dated May 31, 2018 on the crime of embezzlement of property

- Level of trial: Appellate

- Judicial body: High People's Court in Hanoi

- Summary of the case: Pham Kim Ng was assigned by the unit to perform the duty of a one-stop teller, allowed to conduct transactions to directly record receipts and expenditures of up to VND 1 billion at the counter, Ng was entitled to fund and directly manage, use this money to make transactions during the day. Seeing that Ms. Vu Thi N was a customer who deposited a lot of savings in a large amount, had many savings books, had a long deposit period, and rarely went to the bank to withdraw money, Ng made a fake request to withdraw the savings of Vu Thi N then Ng signed the teller and customer N's ​​signature on the customer's request and then transferred the documents to the control department for approval and submitted to the leader for signing and payment, after being approved, Ng himself spends this amount at his transaction counter within the assigned limit for personal use. In total, Ng forged 12 vouchers requesting withdrawal from customer Vu Thi N with the amount of VND 4,285,508,800. On November 29, 2016, Ms. Vu Thi N brought her savings book to the bank to withdraw money, then the bank discovered Pham Kim Ng's criminal behavior.

- Court's decision: Penalizing Pham Kim Ng to life in prison for embezzlement of property