HANOI -- A two-month-long appeal trial for a notorious Vietnamese crime gang and its corrupt government accomplices kicked off on Monday, with six of the key defendants seeking to be spared the firing squad.

Mafia kingpin Truong Van Cam, 56, known by his nickname of Nam Cam (fifth orange), was sentenced to death on June 5 in southern commerce hub Ho Chi Minh City for murder and bribery, along with five members of the gang that took his name.

A record 155 people had stood in the dock for a 15-year crime spree by the Nam Cam gang in Vietnam's biggest city that prosecutors said was abetted by police and other officials who turned a blind eye.

The gang operated karaoke lounges, gambling dens and was accused of attacks on rival groups.

Sentences ranged from four years in jail to life in prison. Cam's lawyer told Reuters on Monday his client had appealed against the two charges of murder and bribery, both punishable by death.

"We will keep trying until the end to prove his case," said Nguyen Dang Trung, one of Cam's two defense lawyers.

None of the government-linked defendants, who include Tran Mai Hanh, 60, ex-head of state-run Voice of Vietnam, and Bui Quoc Huy, 57, ex-vice minister of police, received the death sentence in the trial that exposed government graft.

Hanh was sentenced to 10 years in jail, fined $8,500 and is banned from holding government office for five years after his release from prison for accepting bribes to write articles to sway opinion on the mafia don.

Huy got four years in jail for dereliction of duty and was banned from public office for three years after that.

Both men are among the 69 defendants appealing their sentences.

The appeal does not stand much of a chance, one Vietnamese government official said.

"It is unlikely that there will be any change at all. It is supposed to be a lesson to everyone else," an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who declined to be identified, said.

But others had a different opinion.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," said Nguyen Viet Thu, a construction manager at a private company in Hanoi. In a rare interview with Vnexpress, an online newspaper, before the trial, Cam was quoted as saying that if he received a reprieve from the death sentence, "I would live the rest of my life deserving of her (the state's) clemency."

The state-related defendants had been allowed to remain at home on bail following the sentencing, but last week were rounded up and placed under custody in preparation for their appearance in the appeal court.