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A judge yesterday said high-profile businesswoman Lily Chiang Lai-lei was a 'dishonest and unreliable' witness.
Judge Albert Wong Sung-hau told the District Court she tried to make up excuses to distance herself from the crime of which she is accused.
The former chairwoman of the General Chamber of Commerce and her two co-defendants remained behind bars last night.
They are awaiting their fate on a range of charges brought by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in connection with an alleged shares scam.  
Wong said yesterday he would finish handing down his verdict today.  
Chiang, 50, Tahir Hussain Shah, 45, and former chief executive of Eco-Tek Holdings, Pau Kwok-ping, 54, face charges including fraud, conspiracy to defraud, false statements by directors and authorising the issue of a prospectus that included an untrue statement.
The judge's comments yesterday followed a dramatic move on Tuesday when he revoked Chiang's bail.  
Chiang - whose father is a prominent industrialist - is accused of pocketing more than HK$3.7 million by instructing others to hold options or shares in two listed companies on her behalf, contrary to listing rules.
She allegedly kept the fact that she was the genuine owner of the shares and options from the Stock Exchange and the Securities and Futures Commission.
Chiang wore a mask in court and from time to time bowed her head as she listened to the judge describe her as an unreliable witness.
'She tried to distance herself from the scam,' Wong said. 
'She tried to ... make up excuses for the granting of share options. I found that [Chiang] was not an honest witness,' Wong said. 
'I refuse to accept the exculpatory part of her evidence.'
The judge came to his conclusion after saying he found it was unreasonable for Chiang to claim that she granted 8,844,800 Eco-Tek shares to her former personal assistant Iris Yip Yuk-chun as a gift, considering her minor role in the company. 
Yip, the prosecution's key witness - who is giving evidence against her former boss under immunity from prosecution - earlier told the court that she held the shares only on Chiang's behalf. 
Wong said: 'Giving [Yip] such a large amount of shares is in my judgment out of proportion.'
Chiang earlier told the court that she was not involved in the selection of people who would receive share options at the time of the alleged crimes between 2001 and 2002, as she suffered from poor health and was seldom at the office. 
But Wong said that such a level  of indifference on the part of  Chiang - a majority shareholder in Pacific Challenge Holdings - was impossible.
The judge also ruled that Shah was an evasive and dishonest witness. He said that he would be continuing his analysis of the witness' evidence.
Chiang's sister, Ann Chiang Lai-wan, a vice-chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said outside court yesterday that their industrialist father Chiang Chen did not attend the court because he had business commitments.
She said they had told their father that his daughter's bail had been revoked.
'You can imagine my father's feeling,' Ann Chiang said. 'He is a positive person. We, the whole family, will face the verdict calmly.'
She said: 'What's most important is she knows we all support her.'
26
The equivalent value, in years' worth of salary, of the Eco-Tek shares that Lily Chiang allegedly gave to her assistant



Lily Chiang a dishonest witness, judge decides