The city’s Court of Final Appeal continued to hear the corruption trial of former Prosecutor-general Ho Chio Meng yesterday, first calling Chao Iao Cheng – former head of the judicial assistance department of the Prosecutor’s Office (MP) – as a witness in the morning session.
Chao revealed that he had been to the resting area on the 16th floor of the Hotline Building one time, stating: “the former chief of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Antonio Lai Kin Ian, took me to the area during the period of renovation”.
Chao said he had seen that nothing was inside the resting area and that he thought the whole area on the 16th floor had been rented by the Prosecutor’s Office. After the renovation works had been completed, Chao stated that he did not visit the area again.
Assistant Prosecutor Kuok Un Man asked Chao if he had ever seen any individual who was not part of the Prosecutor’s Office coming out of the resting area, with Chao replying that he had seen a female person who wasn’t wearing the uniform of the Office coming out from the resting area, and thought she was a colleague from the Office.
Assistant Prosecutor Kuok queried Chao as to whether he had ever seen any visitors who had stayed overnight in the resting area before, with Chao replying that all the visitors assigned through his department were sent to stay in hotels.
Chao further added that he had met Ho in person on the 16th floor inside the elevator one time previously and chatted with him.
Unknown area
The court later called Vu Ka Vai, a consultant at the Prosecutor’s Office, to testify in the trial, with Vu revealing that the former chief of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Lai had taken him to the 16th floor and shown him around before he started working in the Office. However, Vu said Lai had only shown him the office working area and not the resting area.
Judge of the Court of Final Appeal, Song Man Lei, asked Vu if he had known the other half of the 16th floor was under lease by the Office.
“I didn’t know the other half of the floor was rented by the Office. I didn’t know the purpose of the other half space and I only saw someone going and coming out from that side,” Vu claimed.
Assistant Prosecutor Kuok showed several photos of the defendants involved in the corruption case to the court and asked Vu if he could recognize any of them from the photos shown.
Vu replied that he could only recognize businessman Wong Kuok Wai, Ho’s brother-in-law Lei Kuan Pun and Lam Hou Un, who is also allegedly accused of working for Ho’s shell companies.
Later, the court summoned Prosecutor Chan Seak Hou, who works on the 16th floor, to testify.
Prosecutor Chan said he could not recognize and did not know any of the people in the photos of the alleged defendants shown by Assistant Prosecutor Kuok in the court. Chan added that Ho had come to his office on the 16th floor twice for work related matters previously.
Ho claimed before the morning trial ended that he had actually seen prosecutor Chan more than twice at this office, and met him once outside the elevator when Ho was accompanying his guests from the mainland at that time.
Up and down
During the afternoon session of the trial, Elsa Cheang Hang Chip, former deputy director of the Prosecutor’s Office, was called to testify.
Before the establishment of the fourth MSAR Government, both Lai and Cheang were working in the Health Bureau as senior consultant technicians and later transferred to the Prosecutor’s Office with the same titles and positions.
Ms. Cheang was promoted, in a dispatch signed by former chief of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Antonio Lai Kin Ian, and ordered by Ho Chio Meng before the end of his mandate, a decision that was later revoked. Ho also commended Cheang in the dispatch as being “rigorous, disciplined, professional, serious and dedicated”.
Not long after the government renewal and Cheang gaining her new position, the new Prosecutor General (at the time), Ip Son Sang, announced that Elsa Cheang’s promotion was invalid.
Disagreements
Assistant prosecutor-general Chan Tsz King showed the court that flight tickets purchased for an International Public Prosecutor’s Annual Conference held in Denmark in 2005 did not detail the attendees’ names from the Prosecutor’s Office or places in the travel proposal, while former deputy director Cheang replied that the department would still pay for travel expenses when the proposals were presented to them. Assistant prosecutor-general Chan asked if it was an order from the former chief of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Antonio Lai.
Cheang replied that all the names of the attendees were treated in a confidential matter and thought Lai was under confidential instructions to not list the names.
Cheang revealed that the procurement and asset management of the MP was originally the responsibility of the personnel and finance department, in which Lai was only in charge of procurement. According to Cheang, it was Lai’s suggestion to get an integrated management team of the office to coordinate works with the personnel and finance department.
Due to the change of management, Cheang requested to withdraw from being involved in the integrated management team (allegedly that which allocated the contracts), with the permission of Lai and the former top official.
Cheang revealed that she had pointed out a price difference in the cost of the flight tickets to London purchased by the office in 2014 and, according to Cheang, she together with her colleagues, sought out three travel agents to ask for the air ticket prices to justify that more cheaper air tickets could have been purchased by the integrated management team.
Cheang said she had mentioned the price difference to Lai, but later received a response from Chan Ka Fai, former chief of the Group of General Administration of the MP, saying, “The price was like that because all the air tickets were purchased by the same travel agent.”
Cheang claimed that Lai had told her that another colleague would deal with the purchase of the air tickets and asked her not to bother.
Before the trial ended, Ho requested the court to call 14 witnesses to testify, alleging nepotism in their ascension in the administrative ranks, but did not mention the names of those witnesses, stating only their positions, alleging they could be secretaries, heads of departments and consultants from the MSAR Government.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Wednesday.
