Vinaline shipping firm chief Duong Tri Dung 'paid bribes to top officials'
Sums were paid to avoid prosecution, Vinalines boss claims, amid a series of anti-graft trials
The former boss of a scandal-mired Vietnamese state shipping firm alleged he paid bribes to senior communist party officials to try to evade arrest, according to state media.
Vinalines chairman Duong Tri Dung, who briefly fled Vietnam as scandal engulfed his debt-ridden firm in May 2012, gave a "shocking" account of paying large sums to a senior Communist Party figure to try to avoid prosecution, said the state-run Tuoi Tre news website.
Dung's claims at the trial of his brother, a former policeman, were widely reported in state media along with officials' denials.
They come amid a series of prosecutions aimed at cooling public anger over graft and fears over the economic impact of corruption at state firms.
Dung, who is under sentence of death, made the claims in a Hanoi court during the trial of his brother Duong Tu Trong, 52, a former senior police official in the northern port of Hai Phong, who was yesterday sentenced to 18 years in jail for aiding his escape.
Dung, who was last month sentenced to death for embezzlement, fled the country after the near-collapse of Vinalines under some US$3 billion of debt, but was apprehended in September 2012 in Cambodia.
He told the court that he was warned of his impending arrest by Deputy Minister of Public Security Pham Quy Ngo - who is a member of the party's Central Committee, a top decision-making body.