"Ho Chi Minh City's Criminal Court gave Nguyen Tang Truong, 26, two years in prison for leading the group that ran the website.

Lam Duong Hieu, 29 and Tong Hoang Anh, 57, were both given sentences of 18 months while Nguyen Do Cong, 30, got one year and three months.

All four were reportedly members of the website's management board.

According to the indictment, the group started the website www.mocxi.com in 2006, billing it as a forum to educate young people on how to have a healthy sex life. It then allegedly evolved into a pornographic site and was also used to exchange information about prostitutes.

Alexa Internet Inc, a service that provides web traffic data, ranked it 84th among the 100 most-visited websites in Vietnam.

Police shut down the website in November last year. More than 20 students aged 20 to 30 were arrested around the country. Authorities decided to prosecute 12. Police are considering further trials.

Deutsche Presse Agentur - December 28, 2009