Mainland Chinese ‘boss’ told Hong Kong waiter to rig 2015 district council elections, court told in HK$810,000 bribery case
Cheng Wing-kin, 31, and co-defendants Ku Ka-ho, 32, and Chan Kin-loong, 37, plead not guilty to conspiracy charge
A Hong Kong waiter was allegedly instructed by someone he believed to be a mainland official to offer a string of payments in a bid to induce localist groups to take part in the district council polls last year, a court has heard.
Cheng Wing-kin, 31, who called himself a government supporter, allegedly began to reach out to various localist groups including Youngspiration following meetings in Macau with a Putonghua-speaking “Boss Li”, his ex-girlfriend Wan Hiu-yee told the District Court on Tuesday.
Wan, a prosecution witness in the case, said she was told by Cheng after the meetings that Li was looking for “localist groups which are against the government” to run in the elections as a springboard to prepare them for the Legislative Council polls.
“He speculated that Li was from the United Front Work Department,” she said, referring to the Beijing unit that handles policies and relations with influential individuals and organisations.
Though unrelated, Wan also revealed that Cheng had met with Hong Kong Indigenous convenor Ray Wong Toi-yeung on at least three occasions in August last year.
But the court did not hear why a possible mainland official would root for localist candidates or any details of the alleged meeting between Cheng and Wong.
Cheng, who studied international relations at the Australian National University, denies eight counts of engaging in corrupt conduct at an election by offering advantages to localists to induce them to run in elections in designated districts.
He is also accused of conspiring to rig the polls with co-defendants Ku Ka-ho, 32, and Chan Kin-loong, 37, who are charged with one count of conspiracy to engage in corrupt conduct at an election. All three pleaded not guilty.
Cheng, who had claimed to have the backing of a mainland company, allegedly offered at least HK$810,000 to eight people – mostly localist leaders, including Youngspiration’s Sixtus Leung Chung-hang – between July and September last year, either to ask them to run in the election in a list of designated districts or to refer other candidates to him.
The payment varied mostly between HK$150,000 and HK$200,000, the remainder of which the recipient was allowed to keep after spending on election campaigns, prosecutors said. But the ceiling for campaign expenses in the district council polls sits at HK$63,100, the court heard.
Only Ku and Chan, who claimed to belong to localist group All People Spontaneous, born out of the Occupy protests of 2014, accepted money, with Ku taking HK$30,000, the court heard.
Wan, a former Scholarism member, said she tagged along to at least two meetings with Li in which political views were exchanged.
The prosecution witness said Li would get together with Cheng following every meeting the latter had with a localist group to inquire about the outcome.
The case was later leaked to the media, after which Cheng, who is also an online radio host, met Li in Macau again, where he allegedly told Li he had responded to a grilling from reporters by saying the money had been offered as an undercover test for localists as part of research for his radio show.
But Wan recalled that Li had asked how much it would cost to run the radio show and had been willing to fork out HK$100,000.
In cross-examination, barrister Jimmy Ma Yiu-tim, for Cheng, asked Wan if it was possible Cheng had been asking Li to invest in his own media projects. But the ex-girlfriend disagreed, saying it was more likely Cheng would have spent the money on daily expenses.
“It was to cover up the true intent of vote rigging,” she said.
The case continues before judge Pang Chung-ping on Wednesday.
