Ong Beng Seng granted permission to visit 3 more cities while overseas

New Paper

10-05-2025

Property tycoon Ong Beng Seng, who is currently overseas, has been given permission to travel to three more cities but the agreed-upon duration of his trip remains unchanged.
Ong, who is facing charges in a case linked to former transport minister S. Iswaran, had earlier been granted approval by the court to leave Singapore from April 28 to May 16 to travel to the US, Britain and Italy for work and medical reasons.
On May 9, a Singapore Courts spokeswoman said in response to queries from The Straits Times that the court approved Ong's application to vary some of the destinations to include Venice and Bari in Italy, and Dubrovnik, a city in Croatia.
These three cities were added to the list of locations that Ong had said he was expected to visit, which includes London, Boston, Miami, New York and Florence.
The spokeswoman added that the terms of his bail while he is overseas remain unchanged.
As part of the conditions, the 79-year-old Malaysian must provide the full details of where he will be staying and his contact numbers to the investigating officer (IO) handling his case or an officer acting under the latter.
Ong must also remain contactable by the IO and surrender his passport to the officer within 24 hours upon return to Singapore.
His current bail of $800,000 has been doubled to $1.6 million.
In 2024, the billionaire was charged with one count of abetment under Section 165, which makes it an offence for a public servant to accept anything of value from any person with whom he is involved in an official capacity without payment or with inadequate payment.
Ong is known as the man who brought Formula One (F1) to Singapore in 2008 - the first night race in the sport's history.
Iswaran was chairman of the F1 steering committee and the Government's chief negotiator with Singapore GP on business matters related to the race.
The two men had worked in the mid-2000s to convince then Formula One Group chief executive Bernie Ecclestone to make Singapore the venue for the sport's first night race.
According to court documents, the businessman in December 2022 allegedly instigated Iswaran's flight on Ong's private plane from Singapore to Doha.
The flight was valued at US$7,700 (S$10,400), according to court documents.
Ong is also said to have arranged for Iswaran a one-night stay at Four Seasons Hotel Doha, valued at $4,737.63, and a business class flight from Doha to Singapore, valued at $5,700.
He had allegedly alerted Iswaran that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau had seized the flight manifest for the December 2022 trip, prompting Iswaran to ask the tycoon to bill him for the flight to avoid investigations.
For this alleged offence, he was given a second charge - the abetment of obstruction of justice.
Iswaran, 62, faced a total of 35 charges, most of which involved Ong.
Iswaran was sentenced to 12 months' jail in October 2024 for, among other things, obtaining a number of valuable items from Ong.
ST earlier reported that Ong intends to plead guilty. His next pre-trial conference is on June 10.
If convicted of abetting a public servant in obtaining gifts, an offender can be jailed for up to two years, fined or both.
If convicted of abetting obstruction of justice, an offender can be jailed for up to seven years, fined or both.