F1 tycoon pleads guilty in rare Singapore corruption case

A Singapore-based billionaire hotelier has pleaded guilty to a charge connected to a rare corruption scandal that shocked the country last year.

Ong Beng Seng has admitted to abetting the obstruction of justice by helping ex-transportation minister Subramaniam Iswaran cover up evidence while he was being investigated for corruption.

Ong gave expensive gifts, including an all-expenses paid trip which included a private jet ride, to Iswaran while they were engaged in official business.

Ministers in Singapore cannot keep gifts unless they pay the market value of the gift to the government, and they must declare anything they receive from people they have business dealings with.

Ong will be sentenced on 15 August.

He originally faced up to two years in jail for abetting a public servant in obtaining gifts, while the maximum jail term he faced for the abetment of obstruction of justice is seven years.

However, both prosecutors and Ongs lawyers agreed that given his poor health, a fine should be imposed instead of a jail term, with the prosecution saying "judicial mercy" should be exercised.

Ong has a rare bone marrow cancer, and the court previously allowed him to travel abroad for medical and work purposes.

Prosecutors argued that while Ong was pivotal in Iswarans attempt to cover his tracks, he was much less culpable than Iswaran, who had been a sitting minister.

Ongs lawyers argued that he had "simply complied" with the plan thought up by Iswaran.

At Iswarans sentencing last October, the court heard that Iswaran requested Ong bill him for a business class flight from Doha to Singapore, after he discovered that he could have been implicated while police were investigating a separate incident.

The judge said that he acted with deliberation and premeditation to avoid a probe.

On Monday, the 79-year-old Ong pleaded guilty to belatedly billing Iswaran for the expense.

A second charge of abetting Iswarans acceptance of the all-expenses paid trip to Doha, said to be worth around S$20,850 ($16,188; £12,194), was also taken into account.

In December 2022, Ong had invited Iswaran on the trip to Qatar, saying he would take care of the trips expenses, which included hotel accomodation and a flight to Doha on Ongs private jet.

Iswaran accepted the invitation but said he would need to arrive in Singapore on a specific date, with Ong responding that he would arrange for Iswaran to travel from Doha to Singapore on a commercial flight.

It was this flight, said to be worth around S$5,700, that Iswaran belatedly made payment to Ongs company for, after he found out that Singapores corruption bureau was investigating a separate investigation relating to Ongs associates - and had seized the flight manifest which had details of his trip to Doha as part of it.

He then asked Ong to have his company, Singapore GP, bill him for the trip.

The two men were arrested in July 2023 and charge sheets revealed that Iswaran was gifted more than S$403,000 ($311,882; £234,586) worth of flights, hotel stays, musicals and grand prix tickets.

At the time of the offences Iswaran was in the governments F1 steering committee and the chief negotiator on F1-related business matters.

Born in Malaysia in 1946 - which was then Malaya - Ong moved to Singapore as a child and founded a hotel and property company in the 1980s.

Ong helped bring the F1 Grand Prix to Singapore and his company Hotel Properties Limited (HPL) has brands like the Four Seasons and Marriott operating under it.

Hotel Properties Limited had earlier in April said that Ong would step down as its managing director to "manage his medical conditions".

Singapores lawmakers are among the highest-paid in the world, with leaders justifying the handsome salaries by saying it combats corruption.