Chief Magistrate to rule on Chinese fraud case

Chief Magistrate Sonya Young will hand down a decision today in relation to a case involving two Chinese natives who have been charged with fraud.{{more}}

The two, Hai Yan Yu, 25, domestic of China/Dominica and Wen Xing Yu, 23, businessman of China/Cane Hall were charged on October 18, 2011.

Hai Yan Yu was charged with using a false instrument, to wit, one People’s Republic of China passport in the name of Yu Ting Lin. She was also charged with making a false declaration to the deputy registrar on August 23, 2011.

Wen Xing Yu was also charged with making use of a false instrument at the Immigration department.

However, after two weeks of trial, the prosecution, led by Inspector Adolphus Delpesche, said on Monday that there was no case for the defendants to answer on the false instrument charges.

Counsel for the defendants, Richard Williams made a no case submission in relation to the other charge against Hi Han Yu. Williams argued that the false declaration charge should be seen as a charge of perjury, because in such a charge, there must be two witnesses.

Inspector Delpesche rebutted Williams’ submission and stated that the law states that the charge is like perjury, but it is not.

Delpesche explained that perjury requires a statement to be made on oath and then have that statement contradicted on oath at another point.

“In this case, there was only one declaration. So this could not be a matter of perjury. One can argue that murder is like manslaughter, but it is not. The elements are different…,” Delpesche submitted.

Williams’ no-case submission was overruled.

Closing arguments for the defense and prosecution should have been completed yesterday.(KW)