Walter Kwok a 'responsible' SHKP chairman, prosecutor tells court
Tycoon's refusal to sweeten Rafael Hui's job package was the responsible thing to do in chairing a listed company, prosecutor says
Prosecutors in the city's highest-profile graft trial came to the defence of former Sun Hung Kai Properties chairman Walter Kwok Ping-sheung yesterday, saying his criminally accused siblings had "unfairly vilified" him.
Walter Kwok's brothers, Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong and Raymond Kwok Ping-luen, are the current co-chairmen of the property empire and stand accused of bribing former chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan.
The ousted heir of SHKP has been repeatedly derided in testimony during the marathon trial.
But lead prosecutor David Perry QC complimented Walter Kwok, who is neither a defendant nor a witness, as "a responsible chairman".
"Walter Kwok's character … has been unfairly vilified," Perry said in his closing submission for the trial. "He's been a subject of criticism by the defendants, in particular Thomas Kwok."
According to Thomas Kwok, his elder brother turned paranoid and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after he was kidnapped for six days in 1997. He kept a mistress, infuriating his mother, and suspected Hui of spying for a rival developer, tycoon Li Ka-shing's conglomerate Cheung Kong, the court heard last month.
It was against this backdrop, the defence argument goes, that Thomas Kwok was driven to keep from Walter Kwok - then SHKP chairman until he was unseated in 2008 - his promise to grant Hui HK$30 million and the rent-free use of two posh Leighton Hill flats for two years' consultancy.
