HANOI, VIETNAM - Vietnam on Monday jailed a former high-ranking official for five years over embezzlement linked to a multi-million-dollar IT project, a court official said.

Vu Dinh Thuan was convicted of abuse of power after a trial in Hanoi, said the official who declined to be named.

He said 22 accomplices were also found guilty, with sentences ranging from an 18-month suspended jail term to six years in prison.

"These people were accused of having caused losses of 4.6 billion dong (S$348,951) between 2003 and 2006," he said.

Thuan, who held a rank equivalent to vice minister, headed the government's Project 112 which was launched in 2001 to computerise the government apparatus, state-linked media said.

He was accused of personally siphoning off almost 300 million dong and could have been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, the reports said.

Others in the scandal were accused of taking kickbacks from IT companies for awarding them contracts under the project.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung shut Project 112 in 2007, before Thuan's arrest later the same year.

Vietnam, ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries, last year ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. --AFP