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Alex Lo

A United States judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of Hong Kong economist Steven Cheung Ng-sheung and his wife Linda Su Cheung after they failed to keep a date in a Seattle court to face tax evasion charges.

The US consulate in Hong Kong confirmed yesterday a district judge in Seattle, Washington, issued the warrant last Thursday after the couple failed to turn up.

'The judge has issued a warrant of arrest. We are expecting District Attorney [of the Western District of the United States] Janet Freeman to issue a statement on the case shortly,' a consulate spokeswoman said.

She said she was not aware of any extradition request, and Hong Kong's Department of Justice said yesterday it had not received such a request.

The couple was charged last month by a grand jury in Seattle with defrauding the US and the Internal Revenue Service through tax evasion.

They faced 13 charges of conspiracy to defraud the US government, filing false and fraudulent income tax returns, and filing a false foreign bank account report.

Mr Cheung, 67, is suing his former company lawyer, Muriel Tsang Miu I, in the High Court for allegedly disclosing confidential financial information to US government officials.

One of the most respected economists in Hong Kong, Mr Cheung was the head of the University of Hong Kong's school of economics and finance between 1982 and 1999 and enjoyed an international reputation for his academic work.

He told a press conference last month he would not travel to the US for the court case, claiming he and his wife were victims of persecution by the US government.

At the same conference, Mr Cheung showed a copy of a letter purportedly signed by Ms Freeman.

The letter read: 'I will agree to drop all charges against Linda Cheung in exchange for Steven's timely entry of a guilty plea and in exchange for Steven's offer to fulfil all conditions of this plea disposition.' Mr Cheung claimed the letter made a mockery of the US justice system.

Yesterday, his weekly column continued to appear in the Chinese-language Apple Daily. The column was an ironic commentary both on his childhood fishing experiences in Hong Kong and the economics of fishing and pollution.

He did not touch on his US court case in the article. He could not be reached at home or in his office yesterday and his office assistant would not say whether he was still in Hong Kong.



US issues arrest warrant for noted economist