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(Published in The Asian Pacific Post August 21, 2003)
Aussie senator probed for giving visa to BC killer
By Asian Pacific News Service
A special Australian parliamentary committee is investigating a senator in connection with a visa granted to a millionaire who killed a university student in Victoria, B.C.
The committee wants to know why South Australian Senator Nick Bolkus approved temporary residency status for John Ng Kong Shan despite knowing he had served jail time for shooting his friend and dumping the body in the ocean off Vancouver Island.
Homicide investigators said Ng's wealthy Hong Kong parents helped cover up the crime. The victim's body has never been found.
Ng, 36, and his Hong Kong-based family own Path Line Australia, an environmental waste company which is currently bidding for a multi-million dollar contract in Adelaide.
Described as a leading businessman, Ng has strong political connections in South Australia and is a director of Path Line Australia. His temporary Australian visa was granted in 1996 after three rejections and interventions by Bolkus.
Last year Ng was granted Australian permanent residency because the Canadian murder conviction - for which he was given six years - was not taken into account when granting the temporary visa.
In defending his decision to grant a visa to Ng, Bolkus who was the former Australian immigration minister under the Labour Government said Ng has not re-offended, other than for some minor traffic infringements, and that his family has invested more than A$30 million in the state of South Australia.
Court records obtained by The Asian Pacific Post show that John Ng was convicted in Victoria, B.C. in 1992 of manslaughter and sentenced to six years' jail after confessing to shooting dead a college friend.
The 1987 murder, fuelled by a drunken rage, was only solved some four years later. According to court testimony, the murder of former Camosun college student Larry Lam, 20, would not have been solved if it had not been for the greed of his killer.
Lam disappeared from the University of Victoria in June 1987 and the case of the missing Hong Kong student was never on the police radar until some three months later.
Fraud investigators stumbled on the case while probing into a matter involving some C$40,000 in bad cheques allegedly written by Lam. When they went looking for Lam, they realised that he had not been seen for more than three months and that someone else had assumed his identity and was writing the cheques.
Ng, according to police records, had applied for a B.C. driver's licence using Lam's name but his own photograph. He began writing cheques in Lam's name and milking his bank accounts. He even applied for a firearms-acquisition certificate in Lam's name.
When the police investigation got too hot, Ng - originally from Hong Kong -fled back to Asia, eventually becoming a citizen of Taiwan.
In the meantime, the fraud investigation turned to a murder probe in Victoria and with the help of Interpol, a warrant was issued for Ng. In April 1991, Ng thinking he had gotten away with murder, returned to Canada for a holiday. He was arrested in Duncan on Vancouver Island by the cops who were tracking him.
As to what happened the night Larry Lam died, the details are sketchy. Court records show that Ng confessed to the killing. He said that Lam had made disparaging comments about his girlfriend, mother and sister and that he shot him in a "drunken rage" Ng said he panicked after the shooting. He put the body in the trunk of his car and drove around looking for a place to dispose of it. He found a boat deserted on a beach at Telegraph Cove - world famous for its killer whales - bought oars and a life jacket and returned to the beach after midnight.
"I put the body, some rocks, a blanket and a rope into the boat...I then rowed a long way out into the ocean, tied the rocks and the blanket to the body and pushed it over the back of the boat." Ng said in a sworn statement to police.
Ng's own parents helped try to cover up the homicide by driving his blood-stained car to Washington state, where they exchanged the B.C. licence plates for Washington plates and abandoned the car at the Seattle International airport.
The parents, who live in Hong Kong, were never charged.
Ng also contacted the Hong Kong parents of the man he had killed and told them to call off the police investigation saying that Lam had gone underground but was alive and well.
When Ng was sentenced, the judge noted his "absolute lack of remorse," as shown by the cheque-writing spree.
He was already married and had a child when sent to jail.
Ng served about 14 months of his six years before he was deported back to Hong Kong.
He then moved to Australia.
Australian Immigration minister Philip Ruddock said ministers were entitled to waive the character requirement in visa applications.
Commenting on the Ng case, he said: "My understanding is the decision was taken in consultation with him (Senator Bolkus) by a senior official of the department," he said.
"In this case, the decision that was taken by the department, initially, in consultation with me, has not backfired," Senator Bolkus said.
"No Australian has been in any way hurt since he's come here," he said.
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