Ao Man Long’s testimony dismissed

The collegial panel of the Lower Court (TJB) approved yesterday Ao Man Long’s request to be dismissed from testifying in the trial of local businessman Pedro Chiang. On the same day, the judges heard two of the 13 defendants in the fifth trial related to the corruption case of the former MSAR secretary for Transportation and Public Works.
Ex-top official Ao Man Long, the central figure in the corruption case who has already been sentenced to 28 and a half years in prison, had asked not testify at the court, because Camila Chan Meng Ieng, one of the defendants, is his wife.
Yesterday, the TJB collegial panel heard the testimony of architect Omar Yeung, who is involved in the construction of the luxury residential complex La Cite, accused of two charges of active corruption and two charges of money laundering.
One of the Macau Stadium’s renovation works contractors Ng Cheok Kun was also heard. The Kun Fai company administrator is facing two charges of active corruption.
Pedro Chiang, aged 56, the main defendant of this case, is accused of seven charges of corruption, four of abuse of power and one regarding money laundering in the corruption scandal of former secretary Ao Man Long.
Chiang left Macau in 2007, before being called to testify in the CCAC.
Last week, his lawyer Joao Miguel Barros asked again for the trial to be suspended, until the Second Instance Court decides whether or not it will validate the evidence presented against his client. Several lawyers submitted the request to suspend the trial, but the judges decided the trial should go ahead.
With an arrest warrant by Interpol for more than a year, Peter Chiang, a Portuguese and Cambodian national, lived for about a year in Cambodia, and since September 14 has resided in Lisbon with his wife and son.
Besides Chiang, the engineer and brother-in-law of Ao Man Long’s brother Chan Lin Ian; Ao Man Long’s wife Camila Chan Meng Ieng and Lei Leong Chi, manager of one of the former secretary’s offshore companies, are also away from Macau.
The trial is set to continue next Wednesday.