Macau's highest court sentenced a former minister to 27 years in jail yesterday for taking tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks, in the gambling enclave's largest corruption case.
Ao Man-long (
"The court ruled according to the law -- I think it was very just," Chief Executive Edmund Ho (
Ao was the highest level official ever sentenced for graft and his trial came as the former Portuguese territory tries to shrug off a reputation for organized crime and reinvent itself as holiday destination in the image of Las Vegas.
In recent years, Macau -- the only place in China where casino gambling is legal -- has drawn several high profile Las Vegas operators who have invested billions of dollars in building upscale casino resorts to attract China's newly rich. Ao was accused of handing some of those construction contracts to firms in return for kickbacks.
He stood as the three-judge panel delivered its verdict at the territory's highest court, before being escorted out of the packed courtroom by two security guards.
Judges accused Ao of "greed" and "shocking" behavior that had smeared the reputation of Macau and its government.
Ao's lawyer, Nuno Simoes, said the severity of the sentence meant they were entitled to an appeal.
Under Macanese law, Ao could have received a 30-year sentence.
He was tried in the territory's highest court, the Court of Final Appeal, because of his seniority. It was not clear which court would be allowed to hear any appeal in the case.
Ao, who was arrested in December 2006, denied any wrongdoing throughout the monthlong trial.
In a four-month investigation, anti-graft officials said they discovered assets worth about 800 million patacas (US$99.5 million), more than 57 times what Ao and his family could have earned over a seven-year period.
During sentencing the judges said assets worth 250 million patacas would be confiscated, as well as properties Ao bought in London, Macau and Hong Kong.
Investigators would also seek cooperation from the Virgin Islands where Ao set up companies with the intent to launder his ill-gotten gains, they said.
Some of Ao's family, including his father and wife, and four business associates also face a range of money-laundering charges linked to Ao's case, but in a separate trial.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
RSS