Charge dropped against ex-Apple Daily executive who turned prosecution witness

Next Digital’s chief financial officer Royston Chow outside the District Court on Friday.

Photo: Jonathan Wong A Hong Kong court has dropped a charge against the former financial chief of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s flagship media company after he testified for the prosecution against his former employer in a fraud trial.

The ruling came after the Court of Appeal last week quashed Lai’s fraud conviction for operating a consultancy office out of his now-defunct tabloid newspaper, Apple Daily, finding that the prosecution had failed to prove that the media mogul had made a “false representation” or was criminally liable for concealment.

At Friday’s hearing, Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi granted the prosecution’s application to formally withdraw the charge against Royston Chow Tat-kuen, the then chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Next Digital, who testified against Lai in a District Court trial four years ago.

Before the convictions were quashed, Lai and Next Digital’s chief administrative officer, Wong Wai-keung, were charged and found guilty of improperly subleasing office space at Apple Daily Printing Limited to secretarial firm Dico Consultants Limited between June 27, 2016, and May 22, 2020, in breach of land lease conditions.

The judge noted that Lai’s fraud case had concluded after the Department of Justice recently decided not to appeal the appellate court ruling. “For you, this is a full stop.

You will no longer be entangled in this case,” he told Chow.

Chan acknowledged the pressure Chow had faced over the years as a prosecution witness against his former boss.

The judge told Chow to put the case behind him and “turn a new page”, wishing him “all the best and good health”.

Chow was initially charged with the same offence as Lai and Wong, but secured immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony against the other two defendants.

He testified as a prosecution witness at the 2022 trial and told the court that Dico’s employees had indeed worked under the same roof as Apple Daily in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate since April 1998, despite the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation barring the use of the office space for any activities other than publication-related purposes.

Chow testified that the group had never listed Dico’s name on the floor directory at the tabloid’s headquarters, but said he was not sure whether that was intentional.

Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February after bein

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