A Macanese billionaire who allegedly bribed UN officials to win their endorsement of a conference center was yesterday to be indicted, a US federal prosecutor told a judge who had agreed to release the developer on US$50 million bail.
Prosecutors said Ng Lap Seng (吳立勝), 68, chairman of the Sun Kian Ip Group, paid hundreds of thousands of US dollars to former UN General Assembly president John Ashe and Francis Lorenzo, a Dominican Republic ambassador to the UN.
Ng is one of six people arrested earlier this month in connection with two bribery schemes at the UN. Ashe and Lorenzo were also charged.
Assistant US Attorney Daniel Richenthal on Monday told US Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox in a letter that prosecutors would file an indictment of Ng yesterday, which would put the case before a federal judge.
“This is not a surprise,” Benjamin Brafman, Ng’s lawyer, said in an e-mail. “They have been threatening an indictment for weeks. Whether by complaint or indictment, Mr Ng is presumed innocent and we have every reason to believe that he will ultimately be vindicated.”
Fox on Friday last week agreed to grant Ng’s release on bail and have him stay at a luxury Manhattan apartment near the UN under the watch of private armed security guards.
Richenthal objected, arguing Ng has “vast” resources to help him flee to China, which does not have an extradition treaty with the US.
Fox agreed to delay Ng’s release until 2pm Monday in order to give the government a chance to appeal his decision to a federal judge.
Richenthal said Ng and his lawyer now have agreed to delay the release until the close of business tomorrow.
Once Ng is indicted, he is to enter a plea, and if it is not guilty then the case would move toward a trial.
Ng was arrested last month, accused in a separate case of bringing US$4.5 million into the US and lying about its purpose to authorities.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS