War of words in Hong Kong tycoons' Macau bribery trial

The corruption trial involving Hong Kong tycoons Joseph Lau Luen-hung and Steven Lo Kit-sing resumed yesterday, with Lau's lawyers challenging a key witness's attempts to link words written in a jailed former public transport chief's notebook to alleged graft.

Lau, chairman of developer Chinese Estates, and Lo, chairman of BMA Investment, are accused of offering former public transport chief Ao Man-long a HK$20 million bribe in 2005. They allegedly offered Ao the money to help Lau and Lo secure land for the La Scala luxury residential development.

Lau and Lo each face one charge of bribery and one of money laundering. Ao was jailed for 29 years last May.

Witness Lee Tung-leung, an investigator with the Commission Against Corruption of Macau, has tried to support the allegations of bribery by citing words in Ao's notebooks such as Lau's name, "airport land", "2,000" and "Jones Lang LaSalle".

Jones Lang LaSalle is the real estate service firm that invited a company owned by Lo at the time to bid for the land.

But Lau's lawyer, Leong Weng-pun, told Macau's Court of First Instance yesterday that those words did not appear on the same row in the notebook, and that Lau's name was not next to them.

Leong also asked why Lee believed the number 2,000 in the notebook referred to HK$20 million, the sum of the alleged bribe.