However, details about his sentence were not revealed when the Hanoi People’s Council announced the dismissal during the closing day of its session Friday.

According to a report by Lao Dong newspaper, the accident occurred on Lang – Hoa Lac Street on July 17, 2008 when Thuong hit a motorcycle that had suddenly turned left in front of the office car he was driving.

The motorbike rider Phung Van Hai died immediately on the spot while his daughter Phung Thi Hoa died a month later after being admitted to the Hospital 103.

Thuong was on the way back from a party at the Thac Da Resort in Ba Vi District to celebrate the merger of the Ha Tay Department of Agriculture and Rural Development into the Hanoi office.

He told driver Dang Van Toan, who was driving him and four other department officials, to let him drive.

Toan had to obey the senior official although he knew the latter had obtained a driving license just ten days earlier, the paper reported.

After the accident, Thuong told Toan to drive the car to their office without assisting the victims. He then returned to the scene in another car and confirmed to the traffic police that his office car had caused the accident.

However, he told Toan to accept his guilt and asked the four officials in the car to make similar declarations to the police.

Police in Hanoi’s Quoc Oai District last August charged Toan for violating the Road Traffic Law. The criminal charges infuriated some unidentified witnesses, who exposed Thuong’s duplicity to the police.

Source: TN, Lao Dong