Tang Wee Sung slapped with 3 charges in kidney-for-sale case
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 10 July 2008 1653 hrs

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SINGAPORE: CK Tang chairman Tang Wee Sung was slapped with three charges in court on Thursday for his role in the kidney-for-sale case.

The first was for entering into an arrangement to buy a kidney from Sulaiman Damanik, an Indonesian.

Tang was alleged to have paid his runner, Wang Chin Sing, S$300,000 for being the middleman, but the deed was discovered before the transplant could take place.

The other two charges against Tang are for making a false declaration to the Commissioner of Oaths and for lying to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital's ethics committee in his oral statement.

Tang is out on a S$15,000 bail. If convicted of all three charges, he could be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to three years.

26-year-old Sulaiman had served three weeks in jail, including an additional week for failing to pay a S$1,000 fine. He was released last Saturday.

Another Indonesian, Toni, who had successfully sold his kidney to an Indonesian woman, Juliana Soh, is now serving a jail term of three-and-a-half months. He was fined S$2,000.

Toni received about S$29,390 from Soh for his kidney.

Wang, who was alleged to have facilitated the kidney-for-sale transaction, was slapped with ten charges in court on Thursday. Six of them were related to Tang's case.

The 44-year-old Malaysian was said to have instigated Tang and Sulaiman to make false statutory declarations that no financial gains were involved and that Tang and Sulaiman were related.

He was also alleged to have instigated them to lie to the ethics committee.

The remaining four charges involved Wang receiving S$8,000 for the sale of Toni's kidney to Soh. Wang was alleged to have instigated similar false declarations to the Commissionner of Oaths and the ethics committee in this transaction.

Both cases will be heard again on July 21.

It is understood that more people could be implicated in the illegal deal. In fact, court documents have named another person, Whang Sung Lin, as being involved in making the arrangements to sell the kidney to Tang.

Separately, the CK Tang board has written to the Singapore Exchange to say that the matter is not expected to have any material impact on its business operations.


- CNA/so