Former Hong Kong leader CY Leung threatens legal action over Democrats’ crowdfunding move

Unfounded allegations designed to bring ‘hatred and ridicule’ on to Leung, lawyers’ letters say

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Leung has threatened Democratic Party members with legal action. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 8:31am, 11 Apr 2018Updated: 4:42pm, 11 Apr 2018

Former Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying has threatened to take legal action against Democratic Party members over their “unfounded” allegations surrounding a HK$50 million payment he received while in office.

Leung’s lawyers sent strongly worded letters to the Democrats on Tuesday after they launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance an international investigation into the money he received from Australian engineering firm UGL Limited.

Sent to lawmakers Lam Cheuk-ting and Andrew Wan Siu-kin, former legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan and barrister Senia Ng Sze-nok, the letters said the Democrats had made “extremely serious and unfounded allegations” against Leung for suggesting he had committed various criminal offences when he served as the city’s chief executive.

Lam is not backing down against Leung, despite the threat of legal action. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Citing the Defamation Ordinance, the letter said that what the Democrats had suggested at the press conference indicated clearly that they “intend to bring [Leung] into hatred, contempt and ridicule”.

As of midnight on Tuesday, the drive had raised more than HK$633,000 (US$80,000) of the HK$2 million target, money the Democrats plan to use to fund the search for new evidence, as well as recruit lawyers and accountants to analyse information on the case.