Death Penalty News

Yang Youlin, the former executive deputy director of the administrative committee of the Nanjing Development Zone in East China's Jiangsu province, was sentenced to death on Monday by the Changzhou Intermediate People's Court for multiple crimes. Yang was convicted of accepting bribes totaling over 2.2 billion yuan ($324 million). He was also deprived of political rights for life, and all his personal assets were confiscated.

In a stunning move amid a continued purge of its military, China on Thursday gave 2 former defense ministers suspended death sentences for corruption. Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu were both convicted of bribery and given the death penalty with a 2-year reprieve by the country’s military court, according to state media. The court announced that the 2 former generals’ sentences will be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after 2 years.  Wei, 72, served as defense minister from 2018 to 2023. Li, 68, succeeded Wei and held the position for less than 8 months in 2023. Both men were placed under investigation by the military’s anti-graft arm in 2023. 

Bai is the second senior figure from Huarong to be put to death for corruption following the execution of Lai Xiaomin in 2021 China has executed a former senior banker who was found guilty of taking more than 1.1 billion yuan (US$155 million) in bribes. Bai Tianhui, the former general manager of the asset management firm China Huarong International Holdings, was executed on Tuesday after the Supreme People’s Court approved the sentence, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

China’s former minister of agriculture and rural affairs Tang Renjian was on Sunday sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for accepting bribes amounting to USD 38 million. Tang, also a former secretary of the agricultural ministry’s leading ruling Communist Party members’ group, has been deprived of his political rights for life, the Intermediate People’s Court of Changchun in northeast China’s Jilin Province said in its judgment. All of Tang’s personal property will be confiscated and his illegal gains from bribery recovered and turned over to the national treasury, the court said.

Xiang Ming, a former senior prosecutor in Beijing, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for crimes of bribery and embezzlement, the capital's No 2 Intermediate People's Court announced on Monday. Xiang, who served as the prosecutor-general of the First Branch of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate, was given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve for embezzlement and a 12-year imprisonment with fine of 2 million yuan ($278,492) for accepting bribes, according to the court ruling. The court combined the penalties for both crimes and imposed the suspended death sentence to him. He was also deprived of his political rights for life, with confiscation of all his personal assets.

Vietnam proposes to replace capital punishment with life sentences for certain non-violent crimes. According to Truong Viet Toan, former Deputy Chief Judge of the Criminal Court under the Hanoi People’s Court, the Ministry of Public Security’s proposal to abolish the death penalty for eight criminal offenses reflects a progressive step that aligns with Vietnam’s deepening international integration, especially in the judicial sector. Currently, under the existing Penal Code, 18 offenses are subject to capital punishment. However, the Ministry of Public Security has pointed out that recent judicial practices show that the death penalty is either no longer necessary or rarely applied for some of these crimes.

Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security has proposed abolishing the death penalty for several crimes, including receiving bribes and embezzlement, as part of a revision to the nation's Penal Code. The draft amendment, which is expected to be presented to the National Assembly this October, suggests replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment for eight specific crimes. Under the proposed changes, the death penalty would no longer apply to eight crimes -- receiving bribes, embezzlement, espionage, actions against the government, sabotage, trading counterfeit medicines, illegal transportation of narcotics, and incitement to war.

A Chinese court on Monday upheld the death sentence for Bai Tianhui, former general manager of China Huarong International Holdings, after rejecting his appeal in a bribery case involving more than 1.1 billion yuan ($151.8 million). The Tianjin High People's Court announced its decision on its official WeChat account, saying it had upheld the original ruling by the Tianjin No 2 Intermediate People's Court. The sentence has been submitted to the Supreme People's Court, China's top court, for mandatory review, it said.

Vietnamese prosecutors have told property tycoon Truong My Lan she must repay an estimated US$11 billion if she wants to avoid execution by lethal injection. Lan, 68, is appealing her death sentence after being convicted in April of embezzling US$12.3 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank. She was also found guilty of bribing government officials and violating bank lending rules. Prosecutors have so far argued against leniency at her hearing in Ho Chi Minh City unless she finds a way to return a significant chunk of the 415.7 trillion dong (US$16.4 billion) she was found guilty of embezzling in two separate trials, according to her lawyer.

The Higher People’s Court of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Tuesday turned down the appeal by Li Jianping, who was sentenced to death in September 2022 for corruption, bribery, embezzlement and engaging in organised crime. Beijing: A former Chinese Communist Party official, accused of embezzling a staggering $421 million - the largest-ever corruption case in China's history, was sentenced to death by a court in Inner Mongolia.

Li Zaiyong, a former senior political adviser from Guizhou province, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve by the Fifth Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing Municipality on Tuesday for accepting bribes of over 432 million yuan ($60.27 million) and abuse of power. Li, a former vice-chairman of the Guizhou Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, was also deprived of his political rights for life and had all his personal property confiscated. The illicit gains from his corrupt activities and interest earned on them will be turned over to the State treasury, with any shortfall further pursued.

Dalian (China): He Zehua, former deputy chief of China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, has been sentenced to death, with a two-year reprieve, for taking huge amounts of bribes, media reports said on Wednesday. The sentence was handed down by the Intermediate People’s Court of Dalian, Liaoning Province, Xinhua News Agency reported.

A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced to death a former executive of one of the country's largest state-controlled asset management firms for accepting "extremely large" bribes, state media reported. Bai Tianhui, the former general manager at a subsidiary of bad-debt manager Huarong Asset Management, was found guilty of receiving the equivalent of more than 1.1 billion yuan ($151.9 million) while using his management positions to offer favourable treatment in "matters including project acquisition and corporate financing", state broadcaster CCTV said.

Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

A Vietnamese real estate mogul has been handed the death penalty for her role in the biggest fraud case in the country's history. Vietnamese real estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death on Thursday as punishment for her role in a 304 trillion dong ($12.46 billion) financial fraud case, Vietnam's biggest on record.

HANOI, March 19 (Reuters) - Vietnamese prosecutors called on Tuesday for the death penalty to be handed to Truong My Lan, the mastermind of the Southeast Asian nation's largest financial fraud on record, state media said. Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, faces a trial in the economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City on accusations of leading a scam that caused damages of $20 billion, or about 4.9% of Vietnam's gross domestic product.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Real estate tycoon Truong My Lan faces the death penalty in a trial that began Tuesday over alleged fraud amounting to $12.5 billion — nearly 3% of the country’s 2022 GDP and Vietnam’s largest financial fraud case on record. The 66-year-old chair of the real estate company Van Thinh Phat allegedly used “thousands of ghost companies,” paid bribes to government officials and violated banking regulations, according to a government document. She is accused of illegally controlling the Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank between 2012 to 2022 and using it to embezzle $12.5 billion, the document adds.

Under China's draconian laws, as many as 46 crimes carry the death sentence. The number of people it executes each year is a closely guarded secret, but rights groups estimate it to be in the thousands  Mobile death vans, firing squads, lethal injections: These are all methods used by China to carry out more state-sanctioned executions than all other nations combined.

In a nation of superlatives when it comes to the scale of just about everything, now one former official in North China's Inner Mongolia can add his dubious achievement to the list: a staggering 3 billion yuan ($420 million) in misappropriated funds and accepted bribes, the biggest haul from graft by an individual in the country's history, according to Caixin calculations based on publicly available information.

The former president of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited was given a suspended death by a court in Shandong province on Friday for accepting bribes of about 1 billion yuan ($137 million). The Intermediate People's Court in Jinan, capital of Shandong province, announced the death penalty with a two-year reprieve to Sun Deshun, saying that Sun will not be commuted or granted parole after the probation. In China, generally, criminals given a suspended death penalty will face life imprisonment if they have no new crimes during the two-year probation. If they continue performing well, they will obtain further sentence reduction.