Hong Kong’s former Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui and co-chairmen of Sun Hung Kai Properties Thomas and Raymond Kwok were charged with bribery and misconduct in public office by the city’s anit-graft body on Friday.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) laid a total of eight charges against Hui and the Kwok brothers, as well as Executive Director of Sun Hung Kai Chan Kui-yuen and businessman Francis Kwan.
The alleged offences include misconduct in public office, conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office, conspiracy to offer advantages to a public servant and furnishing false information. They took place between June 2000 and January 2009.
Hui, 64, also former Managing Director of the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority of Hong Kong, faces charges of all eight offences, while Thomas and Raymond Kwok, 60 and 59, were mainly involved in allegedly offering advantages to a public servant.
Hui and the Kwok brothers were arrested in March on suspicion of corruption and released on bail.
Sun Hung Kai Properties, a powerful conglomerate jointly chaired by the Kwok brothers who own a fortune estimated at 18.3 billion U.S. dollars, suspended trading shortly after the stocks open on Friday.
The defendants appeared in court to hear the charges and will stand trial in October.
Xinhua