Ex-editors arrested in Vietnam anti-graft sweep

HANOI: Two former editors-in-chief of a prominent staterun newspaper in Vietnam were arrested on Tuesday, police said, as the pace of the Southeast Asian country’s largest-ever crackdown on corruption quickens.

The anti-graft drive, led by powerful Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, has swept through the party, police, business and armed forces.

On Tuesday, law enforcers in Ho Chi Minh City in the country’s south arrested Nguyen Cong Khe, chief editor of Thanh Nien newspaper between Q988 and 2008, and his successor Nguyen Quang Thong, who left in 2021.

The two were accused of “violating regulations on the management and use of state assets, causing losses and wastefulness,” police said in a public announcement.

Their offices and residences were searched, they added.

Media reports said the two had turned a large plot of land — which was due to be used for the construction of Thanh Nien’s headquarters — into a high-rise accommodating offices, a shopping mall and apartments.

The deal caused losses to the state, the media reports said, without elaborating.

Vietnam has seen a spate of corruption-related arrests and trials of officials and business people in recent months.

Since 2021, more than 3,500 people have been indicted in more than 1,300 graft cases.

A former health minister was last week jailed for Q8 years, while dozens of other health officials and business people were imprisoned for their roles in selling overpriced coronavirus test kits.

Thanh Nien is among Vietnam’s most influential newspapers, with more than 400,000 copies sold daily.