Man in 9-yr rape and murder case gets life sentence Le Ba Mai is escorted out of the court on August 30, 2013 after receiving a life sentence on charges of child rape and murderTuoi Tre The Supreme People’s Court on Friday upheld the life sentence for Le Ba Mai, 31, who was charged with murder and child rape in a case that has prolonged for 9 years. The man was twice sentenced to death in 2005 and was acquitted seven years later for lack of evidence before getting the life sentence early this year. At his appeal hearing held yesterday in Ho Chi Minh City, three lawyers who defended Mai provided the jury with evidence showing that Mai did not commit murder or rape as imposed on him in the indictment. The lawyers also put forward evidence about shortcomings committed by the criminal proceeding-conducting agencies in handling the case. These lawyers later demanded the court announced Mai innocent and set him free immediately.  Meanwhile, the prosecutor at court proposed that the jury sentence Mai to death for raping and killing a 11-year-old girl in southern Binh Phuoc province in 2004. The court rejected both the lawyers’ arguments and Mai’s appeal in which he said he was convicted wrongly since he had not raped or killed the girl. Based on the evidence and the testimonies of Mai and the witnesses, the jury concluded that the verdict handed down to him by the Binh Phuoc Province People’s Court on January 5, 2013 was appropriate. Accordingly, the Supreme People’s Court maintained the two sentences given to Mai by the provincial court. One of the sentences is the life sentence for murder and the other is the 18-year sentence for raping. Therefore, the combined penalty for Mai is actually the life imprisonment sentence. 9-year case Mai was charged to rape and kill 11-year-old girl, Thi Ut after the body of the girl was discovered in a garden in An Khuong Commune, Hon Quang District, on November 14, 2004. The Binh Phuoc Province People’s Court opened the first instance trial for Mai in 2005, sentencing him to death for raping and then strangling Thi Ut to death. Mai appealed the verdict, and in August 2005, the Supreme People’s Court turned down Mai’s appeal, maintaining his sentence, but the Supreme People’s Procurary later protested the court’s judgment, demanding that the case be re-considered. In February 2007, the Supreme People’s Court’s Jury Panel accepted the protest, canceled the sentence, and requested that the case be re-investigated. The Binh Phuoc Province People’s Court opened a re-trial for Mai on May 24, 2011, and ultimately announced that Mai was not guilty and set him free immediately. However, the provincial court protested the verdict in mid-2011, demanding that an appeal trial be opened yet again for him. On May 18, 2012 the provincial police, under a decision of the appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court in HCMC, detained Mai once again. On January 5, 2013 the Binh Phuoc Province People’s Court gave Mai the two above-mentioned sentences and ordered him to pay VND81 million (US$3,900) to the victim’s family. TUOITRENEWS