VietNamNet Bridge - According to the Supreme People’s Procuracy, in the first half of 2013, over 38,000 new criminal cases were prosecuted, an increase of 0.2 percent compared to the same period of 2012.

Notably, the crime of corruption that was detected and prosecuted in this period increased by 5.7 percent in the number of cases and 21.5 percent in the number of defendants over the same period of last year, with 149 cases and 317 defendants.

Mr. Nguyen Hung Hung - Chief of the Supreme People’s Procuracy Office – told Thanh Nien Daily that a large number of corruption cases that were prosecuted in the first half of 2013 occurred in the banking, finance, land management, investment projects and state-owned corporations.

Hung said the investigation, prosecution, adjudication and enforcement of some economic and corruption cases are sluggish because of the problems in the stage of assessment, primarily financial assessment, construction investment assessment and finance and banking assessment.

He added that the assessment costs are very high while the proceeding agencies do not have money. This makes the sluggishness of economic and corruptions cases, he said.

Tran Cham