Businessman Lew Mon-hung to enter plea on perverting justice in anti-graft probe

Prominent businessman Lew Mon-hung will enter a plea later this month to a charge of perverting public justice by seeking to influence Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and the head of the anti-graft body to halt a corruption probe.

Lew, a one-time Leung ally, appeared in Eastern Court yesterday for the second time since he was charged with one count of performing acts "tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice" by the Independent Commission Against Corruption on August 20.

The prosecution told Principal Magistrate Bina Chainrai that the case would be transferred to the District Court in Wan Chai, and the 64-year-old would enter a plea on September 24.

Freed on HK$200,000 bail, Lew quoted Fan Li, a Chinese politician and adviser to the state of Yue in the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,500 years ago, saying: "Once the birds are gone, the good bow is hidden; after the cunning hare is killed, the hound is boiled."

Speaking outside court, he also quoted famous Chinese military general Yue Fei, saying: "God is watching."

"I now understand how they felt at the time," Lew said.

Lew also thanked those who had accompanied him to court, including his friends at the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, villagers in the New Territories and his brother, who came from Guangzhou.

The charge alleges that Lew, former deputy chairman and executive director of Pearl Oriental Oil, sent two e-mails and a letter to Leung and Simon Peh Yun-lu - head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption - trying to get them to stop an ICAC investigation against him or others because of his past association with Leung.

The alleged offences took place on January 9 and 10.

A source close to the case earlier said Leung and Peh were not on the trial's witness list.