Birmingham City chief Carson Yeung accused over 'inconsistent' evidence
Closing remarks in trial of soccer boss on money-laundering charges highlight 'variances'
Birmingham City Football Club boss Carson Yeung Ka-sing's evidence in his money laundering trial was at variance with that of his accounting expert, and he gave more than one version of some of the contentious issues, the prosecution said yesterday.
In its closing remarks, the prosecution submitted to the District Court examples of Yeung's inconsistencies.
One of them was that accountant Ian Robinson said that a deposit of HK$20 million by Cheung Chi-tai, a Hong Kong businessman, was to fund a British property. But Yeung said it was a payment from his investment in a Macau casino junket operator.
The 53 days of hearings in the trial ended yesterday. District Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong said he would deliver his verdict on February 28.
The 53-year-old businessman has pleaded not guilty to five counts of money laundering involving a total of HK$721 million.
Another example cited by the prosecution was that Yeung first said Lin Cheuk-fung was the majority shareholder of Neptune Group, but later, upon cross-examination, he agreed that former lawmaker Chim Pui-chung was the majority shareholder.
Prosecutor John Reading SC said in his submission: "It is the prosecution's position ... [that] his evidence was completely lacking in credibility because he made previous inconsistent statements, and because during the course of his evidence in respect of various topics he often changed his position, and sometimes more than once."
Disputing the prosecution's claim, defence lawyer Graham Harris SC said it was "healthy" that Yeung's evidence did not match with Robinson's report in certain aspects.
"What do you think would have been the prosecution's position in their closing, if the evidence of Carson Yeung had mirrored exactly every proposition ... in the Robinson report?" he said. "We would have then been facing a criticism that we had tailored our evidence to fit in with Robinson's explanation."
The defence also argued in its submission that the prosecution questioned Yeung in relation to hundreds of transactions which occurred a long time ago.
