KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 31 ― Former MCA president Tan Koon Swan will be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Fourth World Chinese Economic Forum (WCEF) next month.
Tan will be among eight recipients set to accept the award at the event that will be held in Melbourne, Australia starting November 12.
Announcing this today, current MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek also congratulated Tan in a press conference.
“It’s time for what we call redemption. He has gone through a difficult period and I think he deserves (the award),” Chua said.
In 1985, the high-flying Tan fell from grace when he was jailed two years and fined S$1 million (RM2.5 million at current rates) after being charged on 15 counts that included share manipulation and criminal breach of trust (CBT) in what became known as the Pan-El scandal. He quit MCA soon after.
But he recently found some solace when Glenn Knight, the former Singapore prosecutor that won the conviction against the ex-politician, wrote that Tan should not have been found guilty.
Knight wrote in his book: “It was extremely painful for me to suddenly discover that the Singapore courts had got it wrong.”
Knight’s views have, however, been disputed by Singapore’s Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), which pointed out errors in his book, “The Prosecutor”.
Among others, it noted that there were 14 other charges that were not pursued in the 1986 case against Tan because he had pleaded guilty to the charge of criminal breach of trust through violation of Section 157(1).
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