THE curtain fell on Hong Kong's most notorious banking scandal yesterday when the Legal Department formally withdrew 15 remaining criminal charges against Malaysian banker Lorrain Osman.
Deputy Crown Prosecutor Clive Grossman QC, leading Wong Chi-kwong, told Judge Andree-Wiltens in the District Court that all further criminal proceedings were being dropped, effectively ending the case against Osman.
Osman's lawyer, Colin Cohen, expressed happiness ''that the end is finally here''. This brought a smile to Osman's face, as he sat in the dock looking more relaxed than at his first appearance last December after his extradition from Britain.
He is due to be released in nine days' time.
Osman was first arrested in December 1985 at his home in St John's Wood, London, on 42 charges of fraud, corruption and false accounting relating to the BMFL-Carrian scandal.
From then, he fought an unprecedented seven-year battle to avoid returning to Hong Kong to face trial on those charges, making nine unsuccessful habeas corpus applications.