Vietnam real estate tycoon sentenced to death over $12bn fraud

HANOI (Reuters) -- A court in Vietnam handed the death sentence on Thursday to real estate tycoon Truong My Lan for her role in a 304 trillion dong ($12.2 billion) financial fraud, the country's biggest on record, state media said.

Her trial, begun on March 5 and ending earlier than planned, was one dramatic result of a campaign against corruption that the leader of the ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, has pledged for years to stamp out.

Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery and violations of banking rules at the end of a trial in the business hub of Ho Chi Minh City, state media said.

"We will keep fighting to see what we can do," a family member told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Before the verdict he had said Lan would appeal the sentence.

Lan had pleaded not guilty to the embezzlement and bribery charges, Nguyen Huy Thiep, one of Lan's lawyers, told Reuters.

"Of course she will appeal the verdict," he added, noting she was sentenced to death for the embezzlement charge and to 20 years each for the other two charges of bribery and violations of banking regulations.

Vietnam imposes the death penalty mostly over violent offenses but also for economic crimes. Human rights groups say it has executed hundreds of convicts in recent years, mainly by lethal injection.

The Thanh Nien newspaper said 84 defendants in the case received sentences ranging from probation for three years to life imprisonment. Among them are Lan's husband, Eric Chu, a businessman from Hong Kong, who was sentenced to nine years in jail, and her niece, who got 17 years.

Lan started as a cosmetics trader at the central market in Ho Chi Minh City, helping out