Sentence upheld for 'triad soldier'

A 'triad soldier' jailed for 27 years for plotting to murder a star witness in an $8 billion cigarette smuggling and corruption case yesterday failed to have his conviction overturned.

The Court of Appeal judges also refused to reduce his jail term.

Johnny Cheung Wai-ming, 43, was one of five people sent to Singapore in 1995 to ensure Independent Commission Against Corruption witness Tommy Chui To-yan never testified.

Chui, 38, was abducted from his Porsche in Singapore and suffocated. His body was dumped in the sea. The murder was said to have been ordered by Henfrey Tin Sau-kwong, one of the men Chui had been due to give evidence against.

It was alleged that Tin and the five sent to Singapore were connected to the Wo On Lok triad society. Tin, a former Customs officer, had an extra year added to his 5.5-year prison sentence in May 1997 by the Court of Appeal. He pleaded guilty to plotting to pervert the course of justice between March 1994 and April 1995.

In a written judgment handed down yesterday, Mr Justice Simon Mayo said: 'It is quite difficult to conceive of a more serious case than the present one. These were cold-blooded conspiracies . . .'