A Vietnamese court sentenced a journalist to two years in prison on Oct.15, accusing him of writing in-accurate stories about one of the country's most high-profile corruption cases.

越南法院 10月15日判處一名記者兩年有期徒刑，指控他杜撰越南有史以來最高層貪汙案的不實報導。

Nguyen Viet Chien, 56, was convicted of ``abusing freedom and democracy'' at the end of a two-day trial at the Hanoi People's Court. Presiding Judge Tran Van Vy said before announcing the verdict that Chien had used fabricated information in his reports and that he ``damaged the prestige of some high-ranking officials and caused negative public opinion.''

56歲的阮越戰（圖左二），在河內人民法院兩天審判結束後被控「濫用自由民主」，主審法官陳文威宣判前指稱，阮越戰在報導中引用憑空杜撰的消息，而且他「汙損某些高階官員的信譽，並對民意產生負面影響。」

Fellow reporter Nguyen Van Hai, 33, was sentenced on the charges to two years of ``re-education without detention,'' under which his employers or local govern-ment officials will supervise education intended to make him a better citizen.

和他一起採訪的記者、33歲的阮文海（圖右）則被判兩年「保外再教育」，責成他的主管或當地政府官員負責監督，把他教育成更優秀的公民。

The newspaper reporters were arrested in May for writing about a 2005 scandal in which Transportation Ministry officials were accused of gambling with al-legedly embezzled funds. Chien and Hai were accused of publishing false information, including that an exec-utive bribed officials with US$500,000 in an attempt to cover-up the scandal.

這兩位報社記者是在今年5月因報導一宗2005年的醜聞被捕，醜聞中涉案的交通部官員被控侵占公款用來賭博。兩人同時被控出版不實消息，包括一名主管向官員行賄50萬美元，企圖掩飾這起醜聞。

The case prompted the transportation minister to re-sign and led to the arrest of a deputy minister. Charges against the deputy minister were suddenly dropped in March, and the journalists were arrested six weeks later. Chien maintained he was not guilty because he believed the information he used was genuine. ``All of my in-formation came from police officials investigating the case,'' Chien told the court before judges delivered their verdict. ``It was hard to avoid mistakes at a time when all newspapers competed to report on a case that at-tracted huge attention from the public.''

這宗司法案件也迫使交通部長辭職，副部長被捕。但三月間，對副部長所提各項指控突然撤消，兩位記者則在六周後被捕。阮越戰力陳自己清白無罪，因為他相信他取得的資訊是真的。「我手邊所有的資料都來自辦案員警，」阮越戰在法官宣判前告訴法庭。「當所有報紙競相報導，引起廣大讀者注意時，錯誤難免。」

Hai pleaded guilty and was given a lesser sentence for his ``active cooperation with investigators and remorse,'' the judge said. Chien displayed no emotion when his sentencing was announced. His relatives cried outside the court house. Hai burst into tears and hugged his wife in the court room after he was released.

阮文海認罪，因此刑責較輕，「因為他主動和調查人員合作，並深有悔意，」主審法官說。阮文海聆判後面無表情，他的親戚則在庭外痛哭。阮文海獲釋後，在法庭內流淚和妻子相擁。