Property magnate to serve the rest of five-year term for bribing city’s No 2 official
Tycoon Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong was back in jail on Wednesday after losing his final appeal against his conviction for bribing the former No 2 in the Hong Kong government. The decision in the Court of Final Appeal brought to an end one of highest-profile corruption cases in the city’s history. Kwok, former joint chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties, had been. But within minutes of his arrival at court for the verdict, he was escorted out to serve the rest of his five-year term. On Wednesday morning, Kwok arrived at court with his son Adam Kwok Kai-fai and daughter Noelle Kwok. “I’ m anxious but I slept well yesterday night, ” he said, adding he hoped for the best. But soon after, a panel of five judges rejected the bid by Kwok and three others – including former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan – to clear their names. The three others, having been convicted on other charges, would have remained in prison either way. Kwok appeared disappointed in the dock as the ruling was read out. Noting that Kwok was on bail, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li said: “It will now be necessary for [Kwok] to return to prison for him to serve out the remaining sentence.” In 2014 the tycoon was found guilty alongside Hui of one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office involving HK$8.5 million he offered Hui via two middlemen before the latter took office in 2005. Hui, chief secretary from 2005 to 2007, was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail for pocketing almost HK$19.7 million in bribes and for misconduct in public office. The two middlemen – Thomas Chan Kui-yuen, a former Sun Hung Kai subordinate, and Francis Kwan Hung-sang, a former stock exchange official – were sentenced to six and five years in jail respectively for channelling HK$11.18 million. The two-day appeal in May centred on a charge they all faced concerning the money paid to Hui. Prosecutors never established at the 131-day trial that Hui had done anything as chief secretary to favour SHKP, but they argued the HK$8.5 million was a sweetener to secure his favourable disposition towards the company. At issue in the appeal was whether this “favourable disposition” was a strong enough criminal element by the standards of law. Prosecutors said being or remaining favourably disposed was a continuing act, but defence lawyers said a conviction without an actual criminal act was unprecedented. The case came to light in 2008 when the Independent Commission Against Corruption received an anonymous letter accusing Kwok and his brother Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, who was acquitted of all charges during the trial, of providing Hui with rent-free accommodation in Leighton Hill. The men were charged in 2012 and sentenced in 2014. Kwok was granted bail 18 months into his term.
