Ao Man Long
Two former directors of the Macau Waste Systems Company, which belongs to Swire Group, walked free after the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal rejected the Department of Justice’s appeal to seek a retrial on a bribery case against the duo. This means that the case has ended with a failure to prosecute.
Lionel John Krieger and James Tam Ping Cheong were accused of offering benefits to the disgraced Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Ao Man Long, in return for Ao’s renewal of the contract with Swire Group or its companies. The two were convicted by a district court in February 2012 and both received an imprisonment sentence of three years and three months.
However, the conviction was quashed in December 2013 after the Court of Appeal of the High Court deliberated that Hong Kong courts have no jurisdiction to try a case in which a “substantial measure of the activities constituting a crime” did not take place in Hong Kong. This is because the Hong Kong Crimes Ordinance does not have an “extra-territorial effect”.
The Hong Kong Department of Justice attempted to appeal the case to the Court of Final Appeal last Friday, but the application was rejected. The Court will release the ruling soon.
Since the Court of Final Appeal is the city’s court of last resort, the prosecutor has thus exhausted all prospects in the case against the two.
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