Ho’s case continues with several defendants under trial

The trial of Ho Chio Meng, former Prosecutor General of Macau’s Prosecutions Office (MP), continued Friday at the Court of Final Appeal with two witnesses testifying in court.

Roque Silva Chan, a technician at the Office of the Prosecutor General, was the first witness during the morning session.

Chan used to work for the department led by Chan Ka Fai, another defendant involved in Ho’s case.

The witness, while working for Chan Ka Fai, was responsible for following up on the MP’s facility maintenance and service outsourcing.

Chan was found to have signed papers denoting the acceptance of maintenance services for the Prosecutor General’s official residence. He explained that he did not follow up on all procedures for the approval of maintenance services.

Moreover, according to Chan, Wong Kuok Wai – another defendant in the case and the alleged owner of shelf companies – would contact him about the maintenance of the Prosecutor General’s official residence.

However, although he was responsible for maintenance, the witness pointed out that he would not visit the scene to confirm the service had been done. In addition, he claimed that his superior told him to sign the papers and that he could not refuse.

Later on, Chan noted that in the early days after his department was established, he would sometimes help verify the service, as only a few people were working there at the time. However, after some time working at the office, he would not sign any document without first seeing the results.

During the trial, the prosecution produced many documents pertaining to maintenance services for the MP’s water and electricity grid, as well as CCTV networks.

Despite all services being awarded to alleged shelf companies involved in the case, actual maintenance was performed by companies themselves awarded by said shelf companies.

One document revealed that one of the actual service providers had contacted the alleged shelf companies to state that it would cease maintenance of the CCTV system at one of the four floors of the MP’s office.

Following this service disruption, the companies – which had a direct contractual relationship with the MP – continued charging fees for the floor for 17 months.

Chan said that he had not seen the documents, and had deemed all facilities to have been continuously maintained.

The prosecution pointed out that the floor without CCTV maintenance was precisely the one where the MP kept the agarwood seized by the Customs Service.

In the afternoon, three witnesses testified in court. The first witness, Lo Lai Pang, was Ho Chio Meng’s former bodyguard.

The prosecution began by pointing out that the MP had booked hotels under Lo’s name in more than ten instances. Lo said that he never stayed in any rooms that he had booked himself; he would always hand over the hotel’s keys to either Ho or his previous secretary.

A document exhibited at the court showed Lo’s name signed on a hotel expense receipt. However, the witness said that the signature “did not look” like his.

Finally, Lo also said that Ho visited the Liaison Office in February 2015 after going to the Commission Against Corruption to make a statement.

The second witness was a 69-year-old man surnamed Tang, a security officer at the MP’s office located on Hotline Center’s 16th floor. The third one, surnamed Chu, is currently a technical assistant at the Social Welfare Bureau.

Between 2004 and 2007, Chu worked on the Hotline Center’s 16th floor, although not as an MP employee. She had been hired by Ho Chio Chun to work there as part of a company where Lei Kun Pun, Mak Im Tai, Wong Kuok Wai and Ho Chio Shun (Shun, Ho Chio Meng’s older brother) could be seen at the office. Mak, Lei, Wong, and Shun were all defendants in Ho’s case to testify on the topic of shelf companies.

Chu said that when she was hired, Shun did not tell her the specifics of the company for which she would be working.

According to Lo’s testimony, Shun told her that Lei was working at the office. Mak and Wong were said to rarely show up at the office.

The prosecutors named more than five of the alleged shelf companies involved in the case, and wanted Lo to indicate the companies for which she worked.

Lo recognized six of the companies mentioned by the prosecutors. She revealed that she used to provide quotations featuring the names of all the six companies she recognized. Moreover, she said that Wong, Lei and Shun would deliver quotations for her to make proposals; she would only make quotations by copying what her superiors gave her.

According to Lo, Wong would instruct her to mark up the prices by a certain percentage. For engineering projects, the increases ranged from 3 to 50 percent.

Lo also said that her company would award contracts received from the MP to other service providers.

Regarding the time she worked for Wong, Mak, Ho and Lei, Lo said that she did not recall her company providing services to any companies or governmental departments other than the MP.

The witness also told the prosecutors that none of the four defendants admitted to being the owner of the company.

The court trial concluded at 7 p.m. Ho Chio Meng stated that the afternoon’s second witness, Tang, was complacent.

Presiding Judge Sam Hou Fai replied by saying that the court will make its decisions based on the witness’s testimony.

Simultaneously, four defendants also testified yesterday at the Court of First Instance, including former Chief of Office of the Prosecutor General of Public Prosecutions Office Lai Kin Ian, former department head Chan Ka Fai and businessmen Wong Kuok Wai and Mak Im Tai.

Five other defendants were absent from the proceedings.