Lawyer: ‘VN Pharma’s drugs are only fake of origin, not of inferior quality’

On the morning of May 17, the trial of 14 defendants in the case 838,100 boxes of counterfeit drugs VN Pharma continued with the response of the Procuracy to the defense of the lawyers.

For allegedly being the mastermind, former VN Pharma chairman Nguyen Minh Hung was offered 20 years in prison, the highest sentence among the 14 defendants. As the first presenter in the trial before the accusation, lawyer Nguyen Dinh Hung, defending defendant Hung, said “not to argue about the crime” but made two proposals to the jury.

First, the lawyer proposed to clarify “how fake VN Pharma’s fake medicine?”. Before former chairman Hung was prosecuted for the act of “using forged papers to falsify the origin and place of drug production”, the lawyer said that the prosecution agency had only mentioned “violations on drug law”. trademark and origin of goods” without mentioning “how is the quality of the counterfeit goods and what are the consequences?”.

Citing the records, the lawyer said that the test results with these drugs were determined by the HCM City Drug Testing Institute “property, qualitative, physical, shelf life, sterility, abnormality, determination quality…all are up to standard”.

The lawyer therefore said that VN Pharma’s counterfeit drugs were “only fake in terms of origin, not violating quality regulations”. According to him, during the investigation, the investigative agency has collected information on a large scale, in countries and related regulatory agencies, but “did not obtain any documents to prove the counterfeit drugs in this case.” the judgment has caused some consequences for the consumer”.

Second, about the role of defendant Hung in the case, the lawyer said, The former chairman of VN Pharma and the defendants at this enterprise are in the position of “falling into the matrix” of Nguyen Le Xuan Khang (now absconding) and his nephew, the defendant Vo Minh Hung and his Filipino partner Raymundo (documentation). The investigation showed that in 2009-2012, this person entered Vietnam 13 times, due to the lack of mutual legal assistance results, there were not enough grounds for handling).

According to lawyer Hung’s defense point of view, these three people actively approached VN Pharma and gave fake stamps about the drugs. Hung and his staff “didn’t realize this was fake” because even the Drug Administration staff could not detect it. “These papers are only discovered to be fake when the investigating agency prosecutes and applies scientific and legal measures,” the lawyer reasoned.

In addition, in December 2012, the defendants entered into a contract, but in November 2013, the Government issued Decree 185 on penalties for administrative violations in the fields of commerce, production and sale of goods. counterfeiting of prohibited goods and protecting the interests of consumers. “So that this violation precedes, the defendants cannot perceive it as a criminal offense, but only perceive it as an administrative violation,” the defense stated.

Subjectively, the lawyer said that the former chairman of VN Pharma “has very limited knowledge of the law”, because in this trial there were also former pharmaceutical industry officers and a former officer of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department – who were not involved in the trial. knowledgeable and knowledgeable.

“This is to say that the defendants in general, and my client in particular, are governed by legal provisions that they are not aware of, but do not intentionally commit crimes,” he argued.

According to the indictment, the former chairman of VN Pharma was accused by the Supreme People’s Procuracy of conspiring with defendant Vo Manh Cuong to direct his subordinates to forge 15 sales contracts and 26 contract appendices, inflate drug prices, and forge documents on change of drug origin, valid payment documents for customs clearance, import of drugs, illegal profit of 31.5 billion dong.

This morning, May 17, the Procuracy responded to the above views of Hung’s lawyer. Faced with the view that VN Pharma only trades in counterfeit goods of origin, without affecting patients and drug quality, VKS said: “Health 2000 does not manufacture drugs, Raymundo’s Helix Company does not manufacture drugs, but has counterfeit drugs. of these two companies. Therefore, the Procuratorate concluded that this is a drug of unknown origin and counterfeit with the Health 2000 label.

In this case, 4 counterfeit drugs could not be sampled, so the quality could not be assessed. Therefore, the indictment does not conclude that the above drugs are “fake in quality”.

Regarding the consequences, the Procuracy and the investigating agency only concluded that the amount of drugs with the price of 1.2 million USD to nearly 2.6 million USD was imported into Vietnam. The calculated damage, more than 31 billion VND, is the value of the goods that have been traded, and VN Pharma has not suffered any damage in the case.

This is the second case that defendant Hung is involved in labor law. In 2019, the defendant and many employees at VN Pharma also had to appear in court for smuggling 9,300 boxes fake cancer drugs, H-Capita 500mg. During this trial, debates around whether H-Capita 500mg was a “fake drug”, “poor quality drug”, or “real medicine, only fake in origin” also broke out between the prosecution and the prosecution. The rest, including representatives of the Ministry of Health and defense lawyers for the defendants.

At that time, the Drug Administration of Vietnam sent an urgent dispatch to the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City to determine that the batch of H-Capita medicine imported by VN Pharma was a “real drug” produced by India. Hung and his accomplices only faked the origin of this shipment to be Canadian for profit.

But in the end, The above opinion was rejected by the Procuracy, because these documents were arbitrarily collected and provided by the Drug Administration of Vietnam to the investigation agency, not in accordance with the provisions of the law on proceedings. Moreover, at that time, the Drug Administration of Vietnam was also being investigated for violations related to the licensing of drug import for VN Pharma, so the VKS assessed the document as “not objective”.

In October 2019, Hung was sentenced to 17 years in prison by the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City The sale of counterfeit goods is a cure-all. 9,300 boxes of H-Capita 500mg pills The court concluded “false in origin; poor in quality”.

This morning, the prosecutor’s office is continuing to speak with the remaining lawyers.

Thanh Lam