Namibia court unblocks assets in China graft case

<div><p>A Namibian court unblocked Friday the assets of a Chinese national and two Namibians accused of graft worth millions of dollars involving a firm linked to the son of China's President Hu Jintao.</p><p>The assets of the three, including their bank accounts, were frozen after their arrest in July as part investigations into alleged bribery involving the firm Nuctech, contracted to supply security scanners to the government.</p><p>"All property of the three defendants must be released, including their financial accounts," Judge Collins Parker ruled.</p><p>The defence counsel said the order was with immediate effect but deputy prosecutor general Danie Smal said the state had filed a notice to appeal.</p><p>Smal said the defence could oppose the appeal "but in the interim the assets of the suspects could be frozen again until our appeal is heard in court."</p><p>The three were arrested after Namibia's Anti-Corruption Commission discovered that a 12.8-million-dollar (US) down payment on 13 scanners had been diverted to a firm called Teko Trading. Its assets were also frozen.</p><p>All three were accused of drawing large sums from the Teko account and spending it, with Nuctech representative Yang Fan alleged to have taken 16.8 million Namibia dollars.</p><p>Namibian nationals Teckla Lameck and Jerobeam Mokaxwa of Teko Trading were released on bail but Yang has remained in jail because he could not raise bail of 250,000 Namibian dollars (31,000 US, 22,000 euros).</p><p>Hu's son, Hu Haifeng, was president of Nuctech until 2008 when he was promoted to Communist Party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, which controls Nuctech and more than 20 other companies.</p><p>Nuctech has a Namibian government contract to supply security scanning equipment in a 55.3-million-dollar (US) deal paid for with a Chinese loan granted when Hu visited the country in 2007.</p><p>The corruption trial involving the three is expected to start later this year.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67532434&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>


Copyright 2010  <a href="http://www.afp.com/english/links/?pid=copyright">AFP Asian Edition</a></div></div>


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