SINGAPORE, Aug 11 — City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee didn’t dishonestly gain from using the church’s money or conspire to use sham bond deals to promote his wife’s music career, his lawyer said in a Singapore state court today.
“There is no wrongful gain in this case,” Kong’s lawyer Edwin Tong said. Church members had voted in favor of using funds to acquire bonds in two companies to fund Ho Yeow Sun’s pop albums and broaden the church’s reach, he said.
Kong and five others are accused by prosecutors of misusing S$50.6 million (RM129.4 million) of the church’s funds and devising sham bond investments to finance Ho’s career in the largest graft case involving a Singapore charity. The church has said it stands by the six, who are defending charges against them in a trial which started in May 2013.
The pastor in 2001 decided to use pop songs to reach the young who tune in to Viacom Inc’s MTV music channel.
“We’re going to engage the world of MTV and through it engage the world in Jesus Christ,” Kong testified. “The members were very, very supportive.”
Singapore’s white-collar crime agency and the charities’ commissioner began probing the church in 2010. Kong and four others were arrested and charged in 2012 after the regulator of charities found financial irregularities. City Harvest, which has more than 18,000 members, was registered as a charity in 1993, a year after it was founded.
If convicted, Kong faces a jail term of as long as 20 years and a fine for each of the three counts of misappropriation. Ho hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.
The criminal case is: Prosecutor v. Kong Hee DAC023148/2012. Singapore State Courts. — Bloomberg
