Murder case: no charge against Carrian head

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 20

Murder case: no charge against Carrian head

DAVID PORTER,

NZPA staff correspondet

A death sentence passed in Hong Kong on Thursday on a Malaysian, Mak Foon Than, for the murder of a banking official, has left unanswered the role of tailed Hong Kong property developer, George Tan, who was alleged in evidence to have been implicated in events leading up to the killing.

After a trial lasting almost a month, a High Court jury deliberated for more than six hours before convicting Mak of the murder of Jalil Ibrahim, an assistant general manager of the Hong Kong unit of the Malaysian State-controlled bank, Bumiputra. The trial, which drew wide attention in Singapore and Malaysia as well as Hong Kong, delved into the shaky financial practices of the Tan-controlled Carrian Group and the lending procedures of Bank Bumiputra

and its Hong Kong unit (Bumiputra Malaysia Finance, Ltd), as well as the murder itself. Mr Jalil was found strangled in a banana plantation in the New Territories on July 19, 1983. The Court was told he had come to the plush Regent Hotel the previous afternoon for a business meeting. Government prosecutors argued that Mak had lured Mr Jalil to a hotel room and killed him there.

During the trial prosecutors alleged that at the time of the murder Mr Jalil was questioning the extension of a loan of SUS 4 million (SNZ6.I6M) to a company controlled by Mr Tan. They said the loan was crucial to the bailing out of the Carrian Group, which had by then borrowed SUSSOOM (SNZ77OM) from the Malaysian bank. Mr Jalil was said during the trial to have been reluctant to approve the loan which was granted — during his absence at the hotel room — by another assistant general manager, Mr Henry Chin, on the instructions of a Malaysian, Mr Lorraine Osman, the thenchairman of B.M.F. (he has since resigned). The presiding High Court judge, Mr Justice O’Connor, reviewed evidence and testimony from the trial and recommended three possible verdicts: guilty of murder, guilty of the lesser offence of assisting in a murder under duress; or acquittal.

Mak said in his defence that the murder had been carried out while he was out of the room by a Korean named Shin and that he had only helped to dispose of the body out of fear that the Korean would harm his family.

His Honour outlined in his deliberations why George Tan had not been charged in connection with the murder after Mak had alleged in a statement to the police after his arrest that he had been involved in arranging for the Korean to carry out the murder.

Tan and his colleague, Bently Ho, who will stand trial later this year on charges of fraud arising out of the Carrian collapse, made an unsuccessful attempt to have the trial held without public or reporters and retained counsel during the trial. His Honour said the defence counsel, Mr Colin Muscroft, who has said there will be an appeal against the conviction, had asked during the trial why Tan had not been charged.

“On this matter I must mention to you that George Tan could not be charged because the statement Mak gave to the police was inadmissible, and what he said in this Court was insufficient to charge him (George Tan),” his Honour said, according to Court reports. “It’s not necessary for you to find a motive if it’s murder. Of course it would be useful if you could find

His Honour suggested Mr Jalil had been killed because he was reluctant to approve the SUS4M loan to the George Tan company. “This was suggested in the defendant’s statement and again by him in this Court,” his Honour said.

It was unrealistic to think Mr Jalil had been killed for the $HK35,000 (about SNZ7OOO) he had been carrying.

The Court had earlier been told Mr Jalil was lured to the hotel by Mak after being told a well-known Malaysian businessman wanted to change some United States dollars. The trial has caused major political implications in Malaysia, where it has been asked why the Stateowned bank set up to help Bumiputra (ethnic Malaysians) was involved in lending such big sums to a Chinese property developer in Hong Kong. It also emerged during the trial that the defendant had been involved in a company-with the chairman of Malaysian State Chamber of Commerce and that he had good contacts with politicians, businessmen, and members of the Malaysian Royal family, for whom hetravelled around fixing deals and contacts. If Mak’s conviction stands, he is unlikely to be executed as the death sentence has invariably been commuted in Hong Kong to life imprisonment.