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TYCOON Albert Yeung Sau-shing was acting as an undercover agent for the ICAC at the time he is alleged to have attempted to pervert the course of justice, it was claimed at Western Court yesterday.

  Yeung denies asking businessman Jacky Man Lun-chi, 35, to stop a witness testifying at criminal intimidation proceedings against him.

  But his barrister, Alan Hoo QC, said Yeung had gone to the Independent Commission Against Corruption within hours of meeting Mr Man to give them details of the conversation.

  Yeung had even allowed the ICAC to equip him with concealed video and audiorecording equipment so that a second meeting with Mr Man later that day could be monitored, said Mr Hoo.

  The court heard that the equipment was set up in the tycoon's house in Repulse Bay on January 11 this year.

  But it was Yeung, 50, who ended up being charged by the ICAC with attempting to pervert the course of justice, Mr Hoo said. Mr Man was given immunity from prosecution and called as a witness for the Crown.

  Yeung, chairman of the Emperor Group, is accused of instructing Mr Man to approach rival businessman Tse Tak-ching to persuade him to stop key witness Michael Lam Yih-jiun testifying at the criminal intimidation trial in May.

  Mr Man, cross-examined by Mr Hoo, told the court he did not know Yeung had reported their first meeting to the ICAC or that their second meeting was monitored until a few months after he himself had been arrested in connection with the case.

  Mr Man said he, Yeung and David Chan Liu-chuen, who had introduced them, vowed not to tell any outsiders about their discussions on the criminal intimidation case.

  Neither had the ICAC told him it had been given information by Yeung, he said.

  Mr Hoo suggested it was Mr Man who was interested in interfering with Yeung's criminal intimidation trial because he wanted Yeung to do him a favour and he wanted to be paid.

  Mr Man, director of the Yiu Wing Financial Company, had intended to buy shares worth $30 million to $40 million in Mr Tse's forex trading firm at the end of last year, the court heard.

  But he was concerned about competition from Yeung's Emperor Group in Macau and saw this as a weakness in the gold dealing branch of Mr Tse's business, it was suggested.

  Mr Man strenuously rejected all these allegations, insisting it was Yeung who had asked him to approach Mr Tse about putting pressure on the witness.

   But Mr Hoo claimed Mr Man had been acting as Mr Tse's representative.

  'You said you were a good friend of Mr Tse and that he might be able to help the defendant,' he said.

  'You further told the defendant that you would be able to arrange for Michael Lam not to testify against him.

  'The defendant stopped you and said it was improper to talk about this matter.'   Mr Man had been sent to see Yeung to pass on a message from Mr Tse to the effect that Lam was in hiding and would not give evidence in the trial, Mr Hoo alleged.

  The message was also that even if Lam did appear as a witness he would talk rubbish, the court heard.

  Yeung was acquitted in May of criminally intimidating and imprisoning Lam, when Lam and five other witnesses claimed to have forgotten the incident.

  Yesterday, Mr Man contradicted some evidence he gave last Thursday.

  He denied having known Mr Tse long or knowing about his business interests, when he had previously admitted having known him since January and being 'quite familiar' with his business.

  He only agreed that he had visited Yeung on January 11 to talk about the tycoon's police case after magistrate Jonathan Acton-Bond read back his notes of the evidence given last Thursday.

  'Maybe I was too nervous at the moment I was giving evidence for the crown so that I remembered something wrongly,' he explained to the court.

  Yeung, represented by three barristers including a former attorney-general, has also employed stenographers to take notes in court.

  The trial continues today.



Yeung was an ICAC agent, says defence