Hong Kong's Court of Appeal has ruled that a row inside the Department of Justice caused a senior public prosecutor to delete documents relevant to a long running letter of credit (L/C) fraud and money laundering case.

The case has involved a string of appeals by the defendants, who claim that the absence of the deleted files has rendered it impossible from them to receive a fair trial.

Appeal dismissed

The court made its ruling when it dismissed an appeal by three of the accused against a Court of First Instance decision to throw out their application for a judicial review.

Defendants, Kelly Cheng Kit-yin, her daughter Carmen Cheng Wei-ming and Ip Kin-man had asked the Court of First Instance to review a District Court's refusal to grant a permanent stay of prosecution against them on the basis that deletion of the files meant they would not have a fair trial.

L/C fraud

The three defendants and two others are charged with conspiracy to defraud various banks for the issue of L/Cs and of money laundering.

The accused were first charged in 2011 with dishonestly applying for L/Cs worth 33 million Hong Kong dollars from various banks between 2001 and 2002.

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