‘It has to be whiter than white’: Donald Tsang interviews played at misconduct trial reveal efforts to shift attention, prosecutors say
Jury hears for first time 2012 interviews in which former Hong Kong leader explains his attempts to avoid appearance of impropriety
Media interviews with Hong Kong’s former chief executive relating to his use of private jets and yachts in 2012 were heard in full detail for the first time at his misconduct trial on Tuesday.
In a Commercial Radio interview played in court, Tsang was heard telling hosts how the public expected officials to go above and beyond the rules to avoid impropriety.
“It has to be white, or, as the English saying goes, whiter than white,” he said of the expected conduct.
During that radio appearance – met with protesters who called him “corrupt official No 1” – Tsang also pledged to set up an independent committee chaired by former Chief Justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang to look into how Executive Council members and the chief executive declared conflicts of interest.
Media reports in February 2012 followed a revelation that a friend of Tsang’s offered him a trip on a yacht to Macau to attend a banquet, the court heard on Tuesday. Allegations of possible misconduct ensued.
Those allegations, however, did not form part of the current trial. But the prosecutors produced the media interviews to show Tsang attempted to exercise damage control by disclosing scant information about a Shenzhen property and his tie to a businessman there.
Tsang, 72, has pleaded not guilty to a count of accepting an advantage as chief executive and two others of misconduct in public office.
The prosecution alleges that while he was chief executive – specifically, between 2010 and 2012 – Tsang failed to disclose to Exco that he was negotiating with a major shareholder of radio station Wave Media, Bill Wong Cho-bau, over the luxurious three-storey Shenzhen penthouse he intended to retire in, and which Wong owned.
In his opening statement earlier this month, prosecutor David Perry QC alleged Tsang used the media to shift attention from his conflicts of interest.
I am a Hong Kong boy ... I will eventually return to Hong Kong to spend my remaining days
On Tuesday, the nine-member jury was played several audio and video clips from 2012 involving Television Broadcasting Corporation, Commercial Radio, and RTHK.
In dispelling public concern over the private trips, Tsang revealed to various media at the time that, since he had become the city’s leader, he had only taken two jet and two yacht trips offered by friends.
He insisted he had paid for the trips, including HK$5,900 to a friend taking him to Phuket, Thailand, and HK$188,000 to another friend for a trip to Japan, according to the interview.
Tsang also briefly mentioned the Shenzhen flat, which he told an RTHK host was intended to be a temporary retirement home for him and his wife.
“I am a Hong Kong boy,” he told the host. “I will eventually return to Hong Kong to spend my remaining days.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai.
