Former Macau government minister Ao Man-long needn’t bother ordering a new suit just yet ready for the day he walks free from prison.
The ex-secretary for Transport and Public Works may have to resign himself to many more thousands of hours of mailbag sewing or solo mahjong games before he sees again the new Macau skyline that briefly helped to make him rich. Macau’s Court of Final Appeal has handed him another lengthy custodial sentence at the end of a second trial for corruption. Media reports didn’t specify whether the latest 28-year dollop of porridge on 24 graft charges is to run concurrently (i.e. in parallel) with his first 27-year sentence imposed in January 2008, or consecutively (i.e., after it). Regardless of the technicalities, the latest charges to be proven against him will almost certainly be taken into account in any future bid for parole or early release. Mr Ao is 53 years old, so he will be pushing 80 if he serves the whole of the first term. A lot can happen in a quarter of a century though, so in time the authorities may mellow.
There’s no sign of that happening yet. The Court of Final Appeal also confiscated his assets and ordered Ao to give the government back 41 million patacas he had obtained illegally. It could have been worse. Judge Shum Ho-fai was quoted in local media reports saying that had there been no restrictions on length of sentence, Mr Ao’s total of 81 convictions would have earned him a prison term of 368 years. Ao was convicted of taking payments from contractors in return for giving them approval for construction projects.
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