Lew Mon-hung tells District Court he urged Henry Tang to drop out of chief executive race on behalf of CY Leung
CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 14 January, 2016, 5:27pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 14 January, 2016, 6:29pm
Lew Mon-hung told the District Court why he considered an earlier investigation on him to be “unreasonable”. Photo: Dickson Lee
During the executive race, Leung Chun-ying asked controversial businessman Lew Mon-hung to “do something” about then rival Henry Tang Ying-yen, Lew claimed before a court on Thursday.
Lew said he once went to see Tang – who was embroiled in an illegal structure scandal at time of the election – to hand him a letter urging him to quit. He would not have done so had he known that Leung had his own illegal structure, Lew added.
Leung later on went on to television to criticise Tang. The chief executive’s own illegal structure was revealed in June in 2012, two weeks before he assumed office, Lew said.
Testifying at the District Court, Lew said that during a phone conversation, Leung had told him to pursue Tang over the structure. “He said it’s time to do something,” Lew recalled.
Lew went on to say he was never notified about the HK$50 million payment to Leung by engineering firm UGL.
“He lied to the people, lied to the election committee and lied to the Central Government,” he said
Lew, 67, has pleaded not guilty to one count of perverting the course public justice.
He lied to the people, lied to the election committee and lied to the Central Government.
LEW MON-HUNG ON LEUNG CHUN-YING
He is accused of sending letters and emails to Leung and commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Simon Peh Yun-lu to stop an investigation in 2013.
He was then being investigated in a fraud case concerning listed company Pearl Oriental Oil, of which he was then the vice-president. He was acquitted in that case last year.
Lew said earlier that he did not intend to halt the investigation by sending his letter, claiming he asked Leung and Peh to stop it if it was “unreasonable”.
On Thursday, Lew argued that his being cleared of all three fraud charges in unanimous verdicts showed that the investigation was “unreasonable”.
“Why I was acquitted by the jury in 8-0 verdicts? It’s because there was no evidence at all,” he said.
In cross-examination, Senior Public Prosecutor Anna Lai asked Lew what would be considered reasonable.
He said although everyone was equal before the law, he held many posts, including being a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at the time.
“At least there has to be evidence,” said Lew.
He said he had cooperated with the ICAC in a 117-minute interview and had sent another set of letters to Leung and Peh, saying he welcomed the investigation.
However, he accused them of hiding those letters, which were not produced to the ICAC and the Department of Justice until Lew did so.
“The Department of Justice was misled,” he said.
Lai also asked if the interview he did with now-defunct weekly magazine iSun Affairs – in which he talked about Leung, as well as the illegal structure – was supposed to be the “shocking insider’s news” he meant to reveal. The article was published January in 2013, shortly after he was arrested.
“If that’s what it was, Leung would have stepped down already,” he said.
Lai suggested to him that he told media the revelation of “shocking insider’s news” was in relation to the investigation of Pearl Oriental Oil, but Lew said he was thinking only about himself.
He was in court to defend himself, not to do an exposé, he said.
The defence case ended today as Lew had finished giving his evidence.
Judge Frankie Yiu Fun-che adjourned the case to February 3 for closing submissions from both the prosecutors and Lew’s lawyers.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1901152/controversial-businessman-claims-hong-kong-leader-told
