Carson Yeung 'met Beijing heavyweight'
The Birmingham City soccer club owner saw Jia Qinglin, formerly one of the higher-ranking members of the Standing Committee, court told
Birmingham City soccer club owner Carson Yeung Ka-sing met Jia Qinglin, one of the highest ranking members of China's Standing Committee before he retired last year, a court heard yesterday.
Joseph Ng Loi-ping, one of Yeung's friends, spoke of the reception when the defence asked him to describe Yeung's reputation on the mainland. The details of the meeting - when and where it took place - were not given.
The District Court also heard that Yeung made a donation of 10 million yuan (HK$12.52 million) to Tibet for the region's development in 2009.
Ng said he was aware that most of the "tens of millions of dollars" in charitable donations that Yeung had made went to the mainland.
Yeung, a 52-year-old barber-turned-businessman, is being tried for knowingly dealing in ill-gotten gains involving HK$721 million with five bank accounts from January 2001 to December 2007. He denies the five charges.
Defence layer Graham Harris SC has been trying to show that Yeung was already relatively wealthy before the alleged money-laundering took place.
Ng said he was a client at Yeung's salon Vole at The Peninsula Hotel along with movie stars Jackie Chan and Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia.
