Hong Kong property tycoon Thomas Kwok (郭炳江) and the government’s former deputy leader Rafael Hui (許仕仁) saw their appeal bids against graft convictions rejected yesterday as they faced serving out their jail time.
The pair were found guilty of corruption in 2014 after a blockbuster trial over a cash for favors scandal.
Thomas Chan (陳鉅源) and Francis Kwan (關雄生), sentenced to five and six years respectively for acting as intermediaries for the payments, also saw their appeals fail.
“The appeals against conviction of Rafael Hui, Thomas Kwok, Thomas Chan and Francis Kwan are dismissed,” a written judgment to the court of appeal on Monday said.
A frail-looking Hui and grey-haired Kwok were grim-faced during the hearing, which lasted less than one minute.
The seven-month trial centered around a total of HK$34 million (US$4.37 million) in handouts, which the prosecution said were made to Hui by Kwok and his billionaire brother Raymond, to be their “eyes and ears” in government.
Hui was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December 2014, while 64-year-old Kwok — who was joint chairman of Hong Kong’s biggest property company, Sun Hung Kai — was sentenced to five years.
Thomas Kwok’s son Adam said the rejection of the appeal was “disappointing,” adding he hoped the case would be brought to the Court of Final Appeal.
“I personally believe in my heart... that my father is innocent and that this is an unjust case,” he said outside the court.
During the appeal case, lawyer Edwin Choy challenged the legitimacy of an interview between the city’s graftbusters and Hui three years before he was arrested.
Choy argued that Hui had not been put under caution by investigators before giving statements that could later become formal evidence.
Clare Montgomery, representing Kwok, said the court failed to identify any specific advantage that Kwok had received after paying Hui.
Monday’s full judgement rejected those arguments.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the