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SCMP Reporter

THE widow of TVB's founder applied for British citizenship to escape the Chinese takeover in 1997 and was duped by a barrister and a solicitor running an illegal emigration agency, a London court heard yesterday.

  Christina Lee, whose late husband was Harold Lee, paid a large sum of money to barrister Paul Samrai, 37, who was running Opportunities UK, based in Hong Kong, in order to try to get citizenship.

  Mr Lee had been the chairman of TVB since 1967 until his death in 1980, aged 71. He also owned the Lee Gardens Hotel and a large quantity of property in Causeway Bay.

  Mrs Lee was not aware that the Hong Kong agency was running a passport racket, submitting false documents and false information to the British Home Office, which was fooled into handing out rights of abode to people who did not qualify for citizenship, the court heard.

  Mrs Lee was not in court yesterday but is likely to give evidence through a statement to be read out in court by another person.

  Solicitor James Walker, 48, was the London base of the passport operation, it was claimed.

  He confirmed forged documents were true and certified clients' applications by stating they were friends and clients of his, even though he had never met them.

  Walker is on trial at Southwark Crown Court, having denied five charges of conspiring to defraud the Home Office in relation to submitting false documentation between June 1, 1990, and September 2, 1992.

  Samrai, a barrister specialising in immigration law, who will give evidence for the prosecution, has pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiring to use false instruments in relation to the fraud, and will be sentenced at the end of the trial against Walker.

  Speaking on the second day of the trial, prosecutor Brendan Finucane told the jury Mrs Lee travelled to England to obtain a duplicate passport, having been told it was necessary for her application.

  The original passport, which contained only an entry stamp to the UK, was then handed over to the Home Office, which believed she was still in the country after she had returned home.

  The address given on her application form was the London address of Tony Man, a former director of Opportunities UK.

  Mr Finucane said she had been given a blank application form and was told just to sign it.

  When police raided the company's offices in September 1992, they also raided Samrai's flat in Hong Kong.

  The trial continues today when video links with Hong Kong will be established for witness evidence to be seen by the jury.

  Mr Lee, a trained barrister, was an adviser to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs after World War II.



TVB founder's widow duped, UK court told