The Hong Kong Standard and its Chinese sister newspaper, the Sing Tao Daily, were hit by a $1.6 million libel judgment yesterday, after claiming a former vice-consul was sacked over a passport scandal.
In a judgment handed down by Mrs Justice Doreen le Pichon in the High Court, Robert Chan Hung-yuen was awarded $700,000 for the defamatory story in the Standard.
He was awarded $900,000 for a version of the same story published in Sing Tao.
The Chinese newspaper had admitted liability for the article it published.
Mr Chan, a solicitor, was appointed honorary vice-consul for Paraguay in November 1989. But in August 1994 his job was terminated.
The front page Hong Kong Standard article, written on September 15, 1994, by diplomatic editor Neville de Silva and reporter Rukie Hussain, claimed Mr Chan had been sacked after an investigation into a passport scam.
Mr Chan maintained there was a difference between being 'terminated' and 'sacked'.
