Former Hong Kong chief secretary Rafael Hui was sentenced by Hong Kong’s High Court on Tuesday to seven-and-a-half years for corruption and misconduct.
Hui was ordered to pay the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government a fine of 11.182 million H.K. dollars (about 1.437 million U.S. dollars).
Hui was convicted on five counts of misconduct and corruption, which makes him the highest-ranking official in Hong Kong’s history to be found guilty of taking bribes.
The judge said the ruling was made after considering mitigating arguments, including a plea of leniency from former Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang for his ex-right-hand man.
Former University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor Tsui Lap-chee also set out many of Hui’s contributions to society in a letter to the court.
Sun Hung Kai Properties tycoon Thomas Kwok, 63, was jailed for five years and fined 500,000 H.K. dollars, after he was found guilty of paying Hui 8.5 million H.K. dollars in bribes.
Thomas Chan and Francis Kwan, two go-betweens involved in the scandal, were sentenced to six and five years respectively.
Hui, born in 1948, is a former Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong and a former career civil servant. He was arrested in March 2012 by HK SAR’s Independent Commission Against Corruption on suspicion of corruption.
The trials of Hui and Kwok have been widely seen as the most high-profile corruption trial in Hong Kong’s history. (Reuters)
