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SINGAPORE: A Malaysian hotel tycoon who helped bring Formula One to Singapore pleaded guilty Monday to abetting the obstruction of justice, in a rare corruption case in the city-state that saw a former transport minister jailed last year.

Singapore-based billionaire Ong Beng Seng, 79, was charged in October last year with helping former transport minister S. Iswaran cover up evidence in a graft investigation.

He was also accused of showering Iswaran with lavish gifts including tickets to the 2017 Singapore Formula One Grand Prix, flights on a private jet, business class travel, and a luxury hotel stay while Iswaran was working in his official capacity.

Ong entered his guilty plea from a glass-encased dock at a district court in downtown Singapore on Monday.

Prosecutors sought a two-month jail term after Ong agreed to plead guilty. He will be sentenced on August 15.

But prosecutors also agreed with defense lawyers that the court could show “judicial mercy” – which could further reduce any sentence.

Defense lawyers pleaded for clemency, saying their septuagenarian client suffered from a litany of serious ailments, including an incurable form of cancer.

They asked for a “stiff fine” instead of actual jail time.

“The risks to Mr. Ong’s life increase dramatically in prison,” lawyer Cavinder Bull told the court, saying prison could not give his client sufficient care.

“This man is living on the edge,” Bull added.

The trial of Malaysia-born Ong had attracted significant media attention due to his links with Iswaran and the affluent city-state’s reputation as one of the world’s least corrupt nations.

Ong owns Singapore-based Hotel Properties Limited and is the rights holder to the Singapore Grand Prix Formula One race.

He and Iswaran were instrumental in bringing the Formula One night race on a street circuit to Singapore in 2008.

In July 2023, Ong was arrested as part of a graft probe involving Iswaran and was subsequently released on bail.

In October last year, Iswaran was jailed for 12 months after he pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gifts worth more than S$400,000 ($310,000).

He was also found guilty of obstructing justice, in the city-state’s first political graft trial in nearly half a century.

Iswaran completed serving his sentence on June 6.

ATHENS: Surrounded by a hubbub of blaring music, restaurant terraces and rumbling suitcase wheels slaloming between overflowing litter bins, Giorgos Zafeiriou believes surging tourism has made his historic Athens neighborhood unrecognizable.
The Greek capital’s Plaka district “is threatened by overtourism,” said Zafeiriou, who has lived there for more than three decades and leads its residents’ association.
This year, 10 million people are expected to visit Athens, an increase of two million from 2024 which reflects the city’s growing popularity as a tourist destination since the Covid-19 pandemic ended.
Despite its label as the cradle of Western civilization, Athens was previously regarded as a mere stopping point between the airport and the port of Piraeus, from where tourists explore Greece’s myriad of picturesque islands.
Nicknamed “the neighborhood of the gods,” Plaka is nestled below the ancient Acropolis hill, a world heritage site hosting the millennia-old Parthenon temple which welcomed almost 4.5 million visitors last year.
Plaka is now awash with tourists who navigate its warren of narrow streets lined with cafes, taverns, souvenir shops, small Byzantine churches and relics from Antiquity and the Ottoman era.
Plaka “is Europe’s oldest neighborhood which has been inhabited continuously since Antiquity,” said Lydia Carras, head of the Ellet association working to preserve the environment and cultural heritage.
“We cannot see it lose its soul,” she added.
Tourism is a pillar of the Greek economy, which endured years of painful austerity following the 2008 global financial crash and the ensuing eurozone debt crisis.
For souvenir shop seller Konstantinos Marinakis, “Greece is finally doing better thanks to the good health of tourism which allowed the economy to recover and create jobs.”
But the flourishing sector has generated a backlash in Europe’s most sought-after locations, with locals complaining of soaring housing prices and the impact on their neighborhoods.
Protesters have targeted tourists with water pistols in Spain’s Barcelona, while the Italian city of Venice has introduced a charge in a bid to control visitor numbers.
Mayor Haris Doukas told AFP with pride that Athens was now one of the world’s 10 most-visited cities, but acknowledged “areas like Plaka which are saturated with tourists.”
“We are not yet at the stage of Barcelona, but we must act before it is too late,” he said.
An “intervention unit” for Plaka was recently created to enforce rules with the support of the police.
Any resident who spots a restaurant terrace encroaching on public space or cars parked on the pavement can report the offenders to this team.
“Between 1960 and 1980, Plaka was overwhelmed by discos and bouzoukias,” and “many residents had already left,” explained Carras, referring to clubs that play traditional Greek music.
A 1993 presidential decree shut the clubs, protected homes and specified the use of each building in the neighborhood, with hotels only allowed on certain streets.
But “these rules have been dodged,” with “entire houses converted into several apartments” advertised on short-term rental platforms, said Dimitris Melissas, a lawyer specializing in urban planning.
Plaka’s population of 2,000 can be swamped by up to four times as many tourists in the summer, added Melissas, although no official statistics exist because the census measures Athens as a whole.
Representing Ellet, the lawyer has taken a case over the legality of 16 buildings converted entirely into seasonal rentals to the Council of State, Greece’s top administrative court.
He argued they are actually hotel premises in disguise because they have receptions or serve breakfast on terraces. A decision, which could set an important legal precedent, is expected by the end of September.
The conservative government has banned new registrations of apartments on short-term rental platforms for at least a year in central Athens, where more than 12,000 seasonal lets existed in 2024, fueling rent rises.
“But when I still read adverts in newspapers to invest in apartments that can be converted into Airbnbs, I doubt the effectiveness of this measure,” said Melissas.
“The problem in Greece is not voting laws but enforcing them.”