VietNamNet Bridge – On September 21, Thanh Hoa Province People's Court brought to trial three defendants, including two former traffic policemen, for claiming bribes from truck drivers.

The defendants include Le Hong Duan (37, former major) and Nguyen Thanh Hai (27, former lieutenant) from the Traffic Police Department of Thanh Hoa Province and Nguyen Van Doi (49, from Tinh Gia district, Thanh Hoa) on charges of "bribery."

The incident was revealed after Tuoi Tre Newspaper posted a series of reports by Hoang Khuong about traffic policemen’s harassment over truck drivers, including the demanding and accepting bribes of some policemen in Thanh Hoa province.

Then police agencies worked with Tuoi Tre to gather materials and receive complaints of drivers. The indictment stated that the above defendants were alleged to demand bribes of drivers, in late July 2011.

According to investigation, on July 31, 2011, the patrol team including Major Le Hong Duan, Lieutenant Nguyen Thanh Hai, Captain Le Viet Hung and Lieutenant Colonel Le Huu Son was assigned to patrol, not setting up a checkpoint.

At about 7.45 pm, Duan asked the team to go to Mr. Nguyen Van Doi’s home (in Tung Lam commune, Tinh Gia district) to have meal and set up a checkpoint.

When truck driver Nguyen Xuan Tinh, who was transporting timber from Nghe An to Hanoi, passed the checkpoint, Duan asked Tinh to stop for check. At that time, Tuoi Tre’s correspondent Nguyen Van Khuong (Hoang Khuong) was on the car.

Tinh stopped the car and then gave all necessary papers of the car and the shipment, with a VND200,000 banknote inside to Duan.

When receiving the papers, Duan asked the driver what goods he carried on the truck. Tinh said jackfruit timber. Duan asked Nguyen Van Doi to check. Doi reported that the wood in the car was sindora wood, not jackfruit wood so Nguyen Thanh Hai disagreed to receive VND200,000. He claimed for VND5 million ($250).

Tinh bargained to VND1 million but Hai did not agree and threatened to hand over the car to the local forest protection agency.

The truck driver accepted to pay VND 5 million. However, he did not have enough money so he proposed to mortgage the car papers and the driving license. Hai disagreed and asked the driver to write a loan paper.

Nguyen Van Doi suggested to loan Tinh VND5 million, with interest of VND500,000 per day. Doi gave VND5million to Le Hong Duan.

Duan shared VND800,000 to each member in his team. The remaining VND2.1 million Duan deducted for the meal.

The panel stated that "The act of Duan, Hai and Nguyen Van Doi was directly detrimental to the proper functioning of state bodies and affected people's confidence in the traffic police force in particular and the people’s police force in general."

Le Hong Duan was sentenced to 36 months in prison, Nguyen Thanh Hai 30 months in prison and Nguyen Van Doi 24 months in prison.

Thanh Le - Duy Tuan