Macau’s Court of Second Instance (TSI) has sentenced the former president of the government’s Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), recently renamed Commerce and Investment Promotion Institute but still using IPIM as its acronym, Jackson Cheong Chou Weng, to eight years behind bars for bribe-taking, money laundering and other crimes.
Not only did the court dismiss Cheong’s appeal against a lower court sentence but is also increased his prison term from five to eight years. The Court of Second Instance announced its decision in a statement on Thursday.
Macau’s second highest court also announced the dismissal of the appeal by businessman Ng Kuok Sao against his lower court sentence in the same trial as Cheong’s. It also announced that it decided to raise Ng’s prison term by one year to 24 years for bribery, money laundering, organised crime, and document forgery. Macau’s maximum prison term stands at 30 years. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment are banned by the Macau Penal Code.
The original Court of First Instance (TJB) sentences had been appealed by both the Public Prosecution (MP) and Cheong and Ng.
Cheong and several other defendants were arrested by Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) officers in 2019. Cheong, a veteran civil servant, was found by the Court of First Instance to have been bribed by Ng for fast-tracking investors and professionals’ residency applications processed by IPIM. According to previous TJB hearings, Ng had set up a criminal organisation with the aim of “selling” the government’s residency permits. The organisation “sold” the permits between 2010 and 2018.
Ng’s wife was sentenced to 12 years by the Court of First Instance for her involvement in the criminal organisation. His daughter was acquitted of all charges. Ng, his wife and Cheong, according to the lower court trial, had set up more than four dozen companies for their criminal activities.
It was not immediately known whether the Public Prosecution, Cheong and Ng intend to appeal the TSI sentences.
Undated file photo of former Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) president Jackson Cheong Chou Weng, sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment by Macau’s Court of Second Instance (TSI) yesterday. – Photo: MPDG
