More than 61,000 charged with organized crime

Prosecutors charged 61,188 suspects involved in organized crime in local mafia gangs last year as the country initiated a special crackdown against such crimes to better safeguard social stability, a report showed on Tuesday.

Around 350 people were charged for serving as "protection umbrella" for such criminals, according to the annual work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

The report was submitted at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress, the top legislature.

While handling such cases, prosecutors maintained the principle of "no one is let off, no one is wronged", and struck down 9,154 cases filed by police as gang-related crimes, the report said.

On the other side, prosecutors charged 2,117 gang-related crimes which were not classified as serious offense by police, according to the report.

Procuratorates across the country have also intensified efforts to supervise other law enforcement agencies to prevent wrongful cases, the report showed.

"The aim is to adopt a people-oriented approach and work hard to ensure that every case is handled with fairness and justice," the report said.

In 2018, prosecutors rejected arrest warrants of 168,458 people and dropped charges against 34,398 people due to insufficient evidence or their actions failed to constitute a crime, up by 15.9 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively, year-on-year.

Prosecutors also made 58,744 written notifications to remind police not to obtain evidence through illegal means or adopt wrong coercive measures, an increase of 22.8 percent over the year 2017, according to the report.

During the same time, prosecutors appealed against 8,504 court verdicts which they considered wrong, up by 7.2 percent year-on-year. Subsequently, courts changed verdicts or ordered a retrial for 5,244 cases, an increase of 8.4 percent, the report said.