The defense lawyer of the former president of the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), Jackson Chang, is only “partially pleased” with the sentence handed down on Friday by the judges of the Court of First Instance (TJB), expressing his intention to appeal, Álvaro Rodrigues told the media after the court session.
“Partially, justice has been served, at least in what concerned the crimes of the criminal organization, corruption, and money laundering,” Rodrigues said, noting the crimes of which Chang was acquitted, “We have not yet made a final decision [on the appeal], but I will speak to my client next week and we will decide. I believe we will [most probably] appeal.”
Chang was sentenced to two years of imprisonment for the unauthorized disclosure of confidential information of IPIM as well as submitting an inaccurate income report.
Rodrigues also considered the sentence excessive having regard to the type of crime as well as the penal framework, noting that although his client was cleared of all the serious accusations, the feeling is that the result is “somewhat unfair since my client has already served 1 year and 3 months of prison that he should not have served since that time was handed as preventive custody concerning the serious crimes of which he has now been acquitted.”
Pedro Leal, the defense lawyer of the former executive director of IPIM, Glória Batalha Ung, was unhappy with the court’s decision regarding his client.
“I don’t agree with the imprisonment penalty. The suspension of the effectiveness of prison sentences is exactly for this type of situation, for people who have always lived their lives by justice and the law, and are suddenly caught in a situation like this. The court ended up [additionally] penalizing [Glória Batalha] due to the fact that she refused to confess to the crimes. People confess when they know they have committed a crime. She remains confident that she did not commit a crime,” Leal said while exiting the courtroom, TDM Radio reported.
In regards to Batalha’s sentence of 1 year and 9 months of imprisonment for three counts of breach of secrecy and one for abuse of power, Leal considered the sentence to be excessive when compared to the two years handed to Chang for seven counts of the crime of breach of secrecy.
Both the defense lawyers and the prosecution have 20 days to appeal from the court’s decision.
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