Lawyer's attempt to explain breaching court's gagging order 'defies imagination'
Barrister Kevin Egan was untruthful when he testified he had not breached a court's gag order by disclosing the identity of a participant on the ICAC's witness protection programme to others, a judge said yesterday.
Finishing his 150-page judgment, Chief District Judge Barnabas Fung Wah also ruled that there was no 'mala fides (bad faith) whatsoever' on the part of the anti-graft body in its handling of the perversion-of-justice case. This followed strong allegations from defence that the commission had destroyed crucial evidence and misled the court.
On Monday, the judge convicted Egan, 59, of disclosing the identity of Becky Wong Pui-see, a participant in the witness protection programme, to a South China Morning Post reporter, Magdalen Chow Yin-ling, in July 2004.
But he acquitted him of a charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, while finding the other three defendants, solicitor Andrew Lam Ping-cheung, 54, former chairman of Semtech International Derek Wong Chong-kwong, 38, and Wong's lover, Mandy Chui Man-si, 26, guilty of the charge.
Lam, Wong, and Chui were accused of involving the Court of First Instance and the media to pressure the ICAC into releasing Becky Wong, who was Derek Wong's secretary and who they worried would give evidence to the ICAC against him in a market-manipulation investigation.
Both lawyers were acquitted of a joint charge of conspiracy to disclose the identity of Becky Wong.