Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuracy on Saturday proposed the life sentence for Huynh Ngoc Si, former deputy director of the HCMC Transport Department and director of the Japan-funded East-West Highway and HCMC Water Environment projects.
The prosecution agency said Si took bribes worth US$262,000 from officials of the Japanese company Pacific Consultants International (PCI).
It said his act had caused “serious consequences,” affecting the process of foreign investment attraction and damaging Vietnam’s reputation of managing Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA).
According to the agency, Si should have been sentenced to death, but it proposed the life sentence given his contribution to the country in the war.
Si said the proposed sentence was “too harsh” for him, but added he did not ask to reduce the sentence because he was innocent.
The judges will deliver the sentence on Monday.
Last year a Tokyo court sentenced former PCI president Masayoshi Taga to a suspended jail term after convicting him of bribing Sy.
Japanese media reported that former PCI executives admitted paying Sy $820,000 in bribes.
Three former PCI executives in addition to Taga were given suspended prison terms and the company was fined 70 million yen ($774,193) over bribes to secure road contracts in the case.
Japan, Vietnam's biggest bilateral donor, resumed aid loans to Vietnam one year ago after suspending them during the PCI scandal.
Si is already serving a six-year jail term for “abuse of power” conviction. He was sentenced to three years in September last year for pocketing $2,900 in office rent to PCI. In March this year an appeals court increased his jail term to six years.
Sy's deputy, Le Qua, was also ordered to serve five years, up from an original two.
He and Qua were charged with renting state offices to PCI between 2001 and 2002 for a total of US$80,000 but not including the money in official accounts.
The two officials deducted VND350 million ($18,227) for "receptions", divided the rest among dozens of employees and managers, while each pocketed about VND53 million themselves, a court ruled in September.
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