Cardinal Zen and five others have case to answer

Six defendants, including 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun and former opposition legislator Cyd Ho Sau-lan, have a case to answer on October 26 as the prosecution has sufficient evidence to make a prima facie case against them, a magistrate ruled yesterday.

Representing Zen and Ho, trustees of the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Fund, senior counsel Robert Pang Yiu-hung said most of the transactions made to the fund's bank account were in sums of HK$500, HK$1,000 and HK$10,000.

There were larger deposits of HK$100,000 or more accounting for under HK$9 million of the fund, the court was also told.

Zen and Ho appeared before Principal Magistrate Ada Yim at West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts on the second day of the hearing alongside former opposition legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, 74, Cantopop singer Denise Ho Wan-see, 45, cultural studies scholar Hui Po-keung, 62, and Sze Ching-wee, 37, who served as secretary for the fund before it shut down last October.

The six each pleaded not guilty on Monday to a single charge of failing to apply for registration or exemption from registration within the specified time under the Societies Ordinance after being arrested on suspicion of collusion with foreign forces.

The offense carries a maximum punishment of a HK$10,000 fine.

Pang asked National Security Department sergeant Choi Kin-cheung whether the bank account belonging to the Alliance for True Democracy - the company holding the fund - contained more than HK$453 million that had been amassed from over 103,000 transactions.

But Choi said he had not made such a calculation.

Senior counsel Lydia Leung Ching-yee, representing Sze Ching-wee, asked Choi whether he had handled complete documents, to which he replied he was simply taking orders and "I went through as many [documents] as I was given."

The defense said it would make a number of written submissions to the court that would involve an interpretation of the Societies Ordinance.

And Yim urged both sides to carefully define what should constitute a society in their submissions.