The appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday upheld the 7-year sentence for a doctor who caused a series of traffic accidents that killed two people and injured seven others in 2011.  

Tran Anh Huy, a 44-year-old doctor at Children’s Hospital 1 in District 10, bumped his Toyota into two other cars before crashing into 13 motorbikes that were stopped at the LyThai To-Su Van Hanh intersection in the same district on October 7, 2011. The accidents killed one woman on the spot, while another succumbed to her injuries at the hospital. Seven other people were seriously injured and were taken to a nearby hospital. The HCMC People’s Court in January 2013 sentenced Huy to seven years in jail by for charges of “violating regulations on operating means of road transportation.” The court also ordered Huy to pay VND162 million (US$7,600) to his victims as compensation.

After the trial, the families of the dead victims lodged an appeal demanding a heavier penalty for Huy, who also appealed his sentence asking for a commutation.

At yesterday’s appeal hearing, the court rejected the appeals of both the plaintiff and the defendant, confirming that the verdict given by the HCMC People’s court to Huy is appropriate and that there were no grounds to support the appeals from either side. The court also announced that Dr Huy had agreed to pay an additional VND47 million as compensation to the family of Nguyen Thi Lien Chau, one of the two dead victims.  At the trial, Dr Huy admitted that the accidents were his fault, and that they had serious consequences. He also withdrew one part of his appeal in which he asked the appeal court to request that Toyota pay damage to the victims. Earlier, at his first instance trial in January, Huy told the HCMC People’s Court that his car was among millions that Toyota had recalled in 2010 and 2011 for gas pedal repairs. He claimed that the gas pedal caused the first accident, and then the airbags malfunctioned, leading to the following crashes.

The court had to discontinue the trial to investigate the doctor’s claims but police later said they detected no technical errors in the braking system of Huy’s car. Toyota Vietnam also rejected Huy’s allegation, saying that his car was among those recalled for faulty electric windows, not for faults in the airbags or gas pedal.