New | Macau billionaire accuses US of persecution over UN bribery scheme case

Ng said case against him by US part of plan to slow China’s gaining influence over developing countries

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Ng Lap Seng (C), a Macau billionaire real estate developer, exits the Manhattan US District Courthouse with his attorney Benjamin Brafman (R) in New York last October. Prosecutors said Ng used intermediaries to pay John Ashe, a former United Nations General Assembly president and UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda, more than US$500,000 to seek support of a UN-sponsored conference centre in the Chinese territory. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:48am, 12 Aug 2016

A Macau billionaire accused of bribing a former United Nations General Assembly president on Thursday accused the US government of prosecuting him for geopolitical reasons to slow China’s influence over developing nations.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for real estate developer Ng Lap Seng said the case appeared intended to silence his advocacy for a conference centre in Macau, which would have given developing nations a permanent meeting venue in China.

Ng and his assistant, Jeff Yin, were charged last year for engaging in a bribery scheme with former UN General Assembly President John Ashe.

Prosecutors said Ng gave Ashe more than US$500,000 in bribes so the diplomat, among other things, would seek UN support for the conference centre, which Ng’s company, the Sun Kian Ip Group, would develop.

Classified documents and the authorities’ focus on whether an associate of Ng was a Chinese agent demonstrated the US government’s motives in charging him, Ng’s lawyers wrote.

“All these circumstances strongly suggest that the prosecution of Mr. Ng is not, and never was, about policing the integrity of UN operations,” they wrote.