On the afternoon of 1/1, the Hanoi High-Level People's Court of Appeal reopened the appeal hearing for Ms. Tien and nine co-defendants. The case involves losses and waste of more than 700 billion VND at the second facilities of Viet Duc and Bach Mai hospitals.

According to the clerk's announcement, receipts for payments have been received at the enforcement agency from nine individuals since yesterday afternoon. Among them, former minister Tien paid 1,1 billion VND, as she promised yesterday afternoon.

Eight of her former subordinates each paid an additional 20-200 million VND, even though four of them had already fulfilled their financial obligations.

Specifically, Hoang Xuan Hiep paid an additional 20 million VND; Nguyen Kim Trung, 100 million VND; Nguyen Doan Tu, 120 million VND; Nguyen Huu Tuan, 170 million VND; Dao Xuan Sinh, 20 million VND; Tran Van Sinh, 200 million VND; and Le Van Cu, 50 million VND.

The common desire of these individuals is to have their sentences reduced or converted to suspended sentences.

This afternoon, the Procuracy and the Trial Panel will continue to consider these new details to issue the appeal verdict.

Yesterday afternoon, the sentencing hearing was adjourned at the request of five defendants. Accordingly, even though they had fulfilled their financial obligations in the case, these individuals still wished to pay more to jointly mitigate the particularly large consequences.

As for Ms. Tien, the Procuracy acknowledged she had paid her 108 billion VND share, but she desired to pay an additional 1,1 billion VND to share the collective responsibility with her colleagues.

The first-instance court sentenced her to six years in prison; she is currently appealing for a reduced sentence or a suspended sentence.

Her request is being recommended for rejection by the Procuracy, because the primary legal condition for a suspended sentence applies only to penalties of three years or less.

The case occurred at the hospital's second facility construction project, approved in 2014 with a total investment of nearly 10,000 billion VND.

The first-instance court determined violations occurred from the selection of foreign design consultants, to bid preparation, bidding, and construction. The project was abandoned for many years, causing losses and waste exceeding 700 billion VND.

Contractors also spent 100 billion VND on "kickbacks", of which Ms. Tien was identified as receiving 7,5 billion VND.