At the Hong Kong High Court where billionaire brothers Thomas and Raymond Kwok are being tried over bribery charges, the prosecution said that the co-chairman of the second-largest developer in the country had used sham contracts in order to disguise millions of dollars of payments made to a former senior government official.
Prosecutor David Perry said yesterday that the brothers have paid HK$11.18 million ($1.44 million) to Thomas Chan, who is an executive director at their company Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. Chan was said to have set up an investment fund in 2007 run by a friend of Rafael Hui, the ex-government official who is also being tried along with the Kwoks. The money paid to Chan was said to be part of an intricate scheme to be able to continue making payments to Hui, who was once Hong Kong's chief secretary from the years 2005 to 2005. Perry said that the allegations were supported in diary entries, check stubs, and contracts discovered in the homes of the five defendants.
"(The 2007 payment was part of) a coherent and systematic plan to make sure the first defendant (Hui) is sweetened by the payment of the moneys which are part and parcel of the continuation of the scheme that began in 2005," Perry added.
The documents were found by investigators of Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption, Perry revealed. In defendant Francis Kwan's home, the prosecutor said that the accused had detailed documentation of the scheme, of which he listed source of funds, tracing and timing.
"It is obvious these payments were made to him because he was something valuable (to Sun Hung Kai). He was their insider. It's as simple as that. That's what this case is all about -- it's about business in politics," Perry said of Hui.
The Kwoks, Hui and three others have all pleaded not guilty to charges lodged against them, which include conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and to offer an advantage to a public servant.
Raymond Kwok has refuted at least one of the allegations, saying that he only knew about the HK$4.1 million made to Hui as a bonus for consultancy work the latter did for them before he was sworn in as chief secretary.
