Vietnam officials go on trial over COVID-19 flight bribes

More than a dozen Vietnamese officials went on trial in Hanoi for alleged corruption over repatriation flights during the COVID-19 pandemic, a scandal that saw 54 people jailed last year.

The case is part of a major anti-graft drive that has led to the resignation of a president and two deputy prime ministers in a country where political changes are usually carefully orchestrated.

Last year, 54 officials and businesspeople were found guilty of receiving, offering or acting as the go-between for bribes that state media said totalled $9.5 million.

They included four former senior officials at the ministries of foreign affairs, health and public security, who were handed life sentences.

Among the 17 facing court Tuesday on charges of bribery, power abuse, and hiding of criminals are transport ministry and provincial officials, as well as travel company employees.

Tran Tung, a former official for northern Thai Nguyen province, told the court he had accepted around $300,000 in bribes and commission for organising quarantine facilities. 

"I did it as I saw a chance to earn money and benefit myself," he told the court, according to the state-run Vietnam Law newspaper.

The trial is expected to last about a week.

At the height of the pandemic in early 2020—when Vietnam had closed its borders to almost everyone bar returning citizens -- the defendants allegedly gave or took bribes to help people get seats on repatriation flights.

At the time, returnees faced complicated entry procedures, expensive flights and quarantine costs.

Last year, a Hanoi mother told AFP how she had spent over $10,000 to get her teenage daughter back to Vietnam from a boarding school in Europe at the peak of the pandemic.

The graft allegations come as part of an anti-corruption drive that has uncovered a number of deals done during Vietnam's Covid pandemic response.

Last year, the country's rubber-stamp National Assembly removed former foreign affairs minister Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam, who oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic response, from their positions as deputy prime ministers.

The crackdown also brought down President Nguyen Xuan Phuc after he "took political responsibility" for various officials' shortcomings. (AFP)