Arrest Order for Fugitive Hong Kong Tycoon Reaffirmed

A Hong Kong judge declined on Monday to set aside an arrest warrant for a local newspaper tycoon who fled to Taiwan 36 years ago after being charged with drug trafficking.

Ma Sik-chun, the founder of the city’s largest-selling Chinese-language newspaper, was one of nine people who was arrested and charged in a major case in 1977 with trafficking morphine and opium from Southeast Asia into Hong Kong, then a British colony.

In 1978, as the case was heading to trial, Mr. Ma skipped bail and fled to Taiwan, where he has lived as a fugitive ever since. Hong Kong does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan.

Lawyers representing Mr. Ma, now 76, had recently applied to the court in Hong Kong to have the warrant for his arrest discharged, citing an admission by Hong Kong government attorneys that they no longer had sufficient evidence to prosecute their case against him.

The police had alleged that Mr. Ma, who is also known as Ma Yik-shing, had, along with his elder brother Ma Sik-yu, headed a syndicate that brought millions of dollars’ worth of illegal drugs from the Golden Triangle into Hong Kong in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The elder Mr. Ma, widely known as “White Powder Ma,” had fled to Taiwan a year before his younger brother and died there in 1992.

The brothers founded The Oriental Daily News in 1969. The newspaper remains under management of members of the Ma family.

In the late 1990s, a controversy emerged over a political donation by the Ma family to Britain’s Conservative Party. The family had donated $1.7 million for “certain commitments” but had grown disappointed with the outcome and sought a refund from the Conservatives.

At the start of the hearing on Monday in Hong Kong’s High Court, several clerks carried hefty reams of old files into the courtroom, their manila folders turned brown with age.

“This involves some archaeology, and the discolored files are evidence of that,” said Gerard McCoy, the barrister speaking on Mr. Ma’s behalf. “The critical factor, as a matter of principle, is the reluctant and no doubt irritated concession by the prosecution that there isn’t, anymore, sufficient evidence against him.”

He added that Mr. Ma had always “emphatically denied” the charges against him.

Mr. McCoy said that Mr. Ma’s health had deteriorated and that he suffered from recurrent heart failure. He uses a wheelchair and wears an oxygen mask. “Mr. Ma’s dying wish is to return to Hong Kong,” he said.

Peter Duncan, the barrister speaking on behalf of the director of public prosecutions, said the Hong Kong government took a neutral stance toward Mr. Ma’s application. He conceded that prosecutors no longer had sufficient evidence to bring the case to court, meaning that should Mr. Ma return to stand trial, the government would present no evidence against him, and he would be almost certainly be acquitted.

Neither side explained the lack of evidence, but one of the government’s key witnesses in the original case was Ng Sik-ho, widely known as “Limpy Ho” because of a leg injury. Mr. Ng had been arrested for drug trafficking in 1975 and was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. He died in 1991.

Still, Mr. Duncan argued that dismissing the arrest warrant against Mr. Ma could send “the wrong message” that “persons of means” could escape charges by fleeing and then waiting until the case goes stale to have the matter thrown out of court.

Beginning in 1988, Mr. Ma had approached the Hong Kong authorities a number of times about the possibility of returning, Mr. Duncan said. Each time, he had been told he would face arrest.

In his ruling dismissing the application, Judge Andrew Chan said the fact that evidence against Mr. Ma had weakened over time was a matter for public prosecutors and the department of justice to explain. But as far as the court was concerned, the arrest warrant that was issued by the court against Mr. Ma in 1978 was still valid.

Lawyers for Mr. Ma declined to comment on the ruling, or to say whether they would appeal.