Police opposition to trial of immigration pair vindicated

Police and senior government lawyers who advised against prosecuting three officials over the wrongful jailing of teenager Lin Qiaoying were vindicated yesterday when the remaining two defendants were acquitted.

Immigration assistant Wong Chui-kam, 28, and part-time interpreter Wong Kin-ang, 45, cried tears of relief as they were cleared of perverting the course of justice after a multimillion-dollar 28-day trial. Their acquittals came almost a year after police and lawyers said there was not enough evidence to justify a prosecution.

The court had heard that on October 9, 1999, Ms Lin was threatened with being sent back to the mainland or locked up for life in Hong Kong if she did not admit she was another girl, Chan Lai-na. She was jailed for four months after pleading guilty to a charge of possession of a forged passport on October 12, 1999, but her conviction was quashed when her passport was proved genuine on January 31 last year.

Acquitting the pair yesterday, District Court Judge Barnabas Fung Wah said Ms Lin had lied to police and there were 'major discrepancies' in her testimony, adding that he was 'not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that [Lin] was a truthful witness'.

A third defendant, Lung Kin-sang, 37, was acquitted on January 16 of perverting the course of justice.

In March last year, the South China Morning Post disclosed that a police investigation into the case found no evidence that officials had used threats or intimidation to force a confession. But the probe did identify serious flaws in the way the Immigration Department interviews suspects and presents evidence to courts.