Chiang’s trial starts Wednesday in Macau

Local businessman Pedro Chiang, defendant in the corruption case of former secretary Ao Man Long, is still in Portugal and will be tried in absence in Macau starting from Wednesday, February 24, his lawyer said, quoted by Portuguese news agency Lusa.
“The Macau government intends to hold the trial in the territory, since there is no cooperation between Macau and Portugal, because the region didn’t want to cooperate,” lawyer João Miguel Barros said, confirming his presence in the courtroom next Wednesday to defend his client.
Peter Chiang, aged 56, 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 Commission Against Corruption (CCAC), according to his lawyer.
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. He has expressed to the Attorney General’s Office their willingness to be investigated and prosecuted by the Portuguese authorities.
Chiang’s lawyer in Macau stressed that “[Pedro Chiang] realised that the best way to defend himself against charges and against ‘public lynching’ that he has been subjected to was to report to the authorities in Portugal.”
Portugal and Macau in 2001 concluded an agreement on legal and judicial cooperation, which requires each region to report judicial proceedings in criminal matters and to aid in the capture and surrender of suspects, but the extradition of Portuguese citizens of the country “is only permitted in cases of terrorism and international organised crime”, as required by the Portuguese Constitution.
Although Macau has not shown interest in cooperating with the Portuguese authorities at this stage, this does not stop them from doing so at the end of Pedro Chiang’s trial, a point which has already been taken into consideration by Ho Chio Meng, Prosecutor General of the Public Prosecutions Office.
“I think it is appropriate to do the trial in Macau and the Public Prosecutions Office has already brought charges against Peter Chiang,” Ho Chio Meng told journalists at the end of December, adding that only after the sentence can an extradition process be put in motion against the businessman.
Former secretary for Transport and Public Works, Ao Man Long, the central figure in a corruption case, has been held since December of 2006 and is currently serving a prison sentence of 28 and a half years, and is awaiting trial on two more charges.
In addition to Ao Man Long, his wife, father, brother and sister-in-law are all held in connection with related cases, which also includes entrepreneurs and employees of construction companies or services that have bribed the then secretary to receive public work contracts without public tenders.