Vietnam abolishes death penalty for 8 criminal offenses
- Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
- Jun 27
- 2 min read
United Press International
June 26, 2025
By Darryl Coote
June 26 (UPI) -- Vietnam has abolished the death penalty for eight criminal offenses, including bribery, embezzlement and drug smuggling, setting the stage for the courts to spare the life of a real estate tycoon sentenced to death last year in the country's largest-ever financial fraud case.
The law removing the death penalty from the handful of offenses was adopted by Vietnam's National Assembly on Wednesday, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported. The vote was near unanimous with 429 of 439 lawmakers in the assembly voting in favor of the reform, which will take effect Tuesday.
Crimes that will no longer carry the death penalty include bribery, embezzlement, attempts to overthrow the government, producing or selling counterfeit medicine, undermining peace, provoking war, espionage, and drug trafficking.
According to the report, those sentenced to death prior to July 1 on any of these offenses who have not been executed will have their sentences commuted by the chief justice of the Supreme People's Court to life imprisonment.
Those affected include Truong My Lan, a property developer found guilty and sentenced to death in April 2024 in the largest-ever financial fraud case in the country.
She was convicted of causing the Saigon Commercial Bank, which she controlled through shell companies, to lose about $44 billion over a decade, specifically of embezzling $12.5 billion, with the remaining $27 billion having been misappropriated.
She appealed her conviction, which was upheld in December.
Copyright 2025 UPI
Comment
27 June 2025
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango
We welcome the unanimous decision by Viet Nam’s Parliament on Wednesday to end the death penalty for offenses including espionage, embezzlement and illegal transportation of narcotic substances. These legislative changes, which are due to come into effect on 1 July, will reduce the number of offences for which the death penalty can be applied from 18 to 10.
We urge the authorities in Viet Nam to build on this historic vote by taking further steps toward abolishing the death sentence completely, for all crimes, and in the meantime, we encourage the authorities to implement a moratorium on the use of the death penalty for the remaining offences punishable by death.
The death penalty is inherently incompatible with the fundamental right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. Evidence suggests it has little, if any, effect in deterring crime.
