Defence may seek mistrial for Lily Chiang

The fraud trial of businesswoman Lily Chiang Lai-lei was yesterday told of a shady man in a baseball cap who passed over to one of her co-accused what appeared to be police files on her personal assistant.

The defence counsel believes the information in the files raises questions about the credibility of a witness and could give rise to grounds for a mistrial or an application for a permanent stay of the proceedings.

Ex-General Chamber of Commerce chairman Chiang, 49, Tahir Hussain Shah, 45, and former chief executive of Eco-Tek Holdings Pau Kwok-ping, 54, are facing fraud charges brought by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Yesterday, with the defence due to begin laying out its case following Tuesday's ruling by Judge Albert Wong Sung-hau that the defendants had a case to answer, counsel for Shah, Kevin Egan, told the court that on Wednesday his client had been handed documents by the mysterious man in a baseball cap.

The documents appeared to be police case reports, two of which bear the name Yip Yuk-chun - a name identical to that of Chiang's personal assistant of 15 years. Yip has already testified under immunity.

One of the documents states that Yip was arrested on July 20, 2008 in possession of 17.29 grams of suspected cocaine. Another document, which mysteriously appeared on Shah's office desk in Quarry Bay on Wednesday morning, states that Yip was robbed on September 7, 2009. Yip's bag, which was later found, contained a bag, suspected to contain dangerous drugs.

Under earlier cross-examination, Yip told the court that she had never been arrested for drug offences and had never been found in possession of drugs, the court heard.