Justice was not done!
General Apolinário recalls the assassination attempt against him and regrets the investigation's failure.
He was the most high-profile victim of 90s-era triad warfare in Macau. Manuel Antonio Apolinário, then a Lieutenant-Colonel and deputy director of Macau’s gambling inspectorate, was shot twice at point-blank range in the face and neck, right after he left his office in downtown Macau, late in the afternoon of September 26, 1996. A waiting gunman on a motorcycle ambushed him and opened fire as Mr. Apólinario was getting into his car. No arrests were ever made in connection with the attack.
Mr. Apolinário survived the life-threatening injuries and returned to Macau after a period of recovery in Portugal. However, a few months later he would be relieved from his job for security reasons. He departed to Lisbon for good in August 1997. Promoted afterwards to Major General, he remains a man deeply affected by the assassination attempt that nearly cost him his life. Things only got worse recently when he realised not much has been done to capture his would-be killers, as he explains in this interview with Macau CLOSER – the first he’s given since his near-death experience a decade ago.
What caused the explosion of violence in Macau in the 90s?
Many claim that all of that violence stemmed from a fight between two triads trying to assume full control over VIP gaming rooms and illegal activities related with casinos. That is not the case in my opinion. Of course, there were some incidents involving members of several triads, as had always happened before in Macau. But, as far as I know, most of the violence in the late 90s was caused by the leaders of the 14K Triad, who targeted everyone that might jeopardise their illegal businesses, including police officers, other law enforcement agents and even Hong Kong residents, triad members or not, who were coming to Macau “to steal what belonged to them,” as they used to say.
Could the government have avoided it?
I suppose so. The Dragonheads and all the other major triad leaders were well known to the police. To stop the violence it would have been enough to arrest some of them, based on their inability to explain how they had accumulated such huge fortunes. Simultaneously, major players from the criminal underworld in Hong Kong, who were also quite well known to local police, should have been blacklisted and kept away from Macau. If this had been done, I’m sure things would never have deteriorated the way they did.
The second lasted from October 1996 to August 1997, when I served first as deputy director and then director of the Gaming Inspectorate. I suffered the assassination attempt on November 26, 1996 – less than 2 months after returning to Macau.
A month earlier, I had presented a proposal to my superiors with some suggestions to end, or at least minimise, triad activities in local casinos. I wanted to organise joint police patrols inside gaming rooms (no Gurkhas involved, I would like to clarify), a permanent control of casino video cameras by our staff, and an e ffective supervision system over the junkets.
On the 2nd of November 1996 I received highly reliable information from inside the 14K triad that, at a meeting of their leaders, it had been decided to kill me. Ten days later, on November 12, after receiving approval from my superiors, I arranged a meeting with Wan Kuok Koi at my office to discuss the overall situation inside Macau’s casinos. At the meeting, which was witnessed by gaming inspector Francisco Amaral (who later would be assassinated), Wan Kuok Koi, while displaying some psychic instability, admitted he was the Dragonhead of the 14K Triad and promised to continue fighting triads from Hong Kong, because they were trying to assume control over local casinos and steal what belonged to
There were late changes in the Judiciary Police hierarchy, with the appointment of public prosecutor Marques Baptista, also known as ‘Rambo’, as their new director. Did that help solve the problem, or did it complicate things even further?
The Judiciary Police, the branch responsible for criminal investigations, was a key element in fighting triads. Unfortunately, it never fought them in a consistent way for lack of solidarity among their members. The police force was broken into different factions, each of them with their own goals and tactics. Marques Baptista realised this right away, and that helped him to strengthen his command. Despite his acting perhaps a little too late, he did accomplish his mission by arresting most of the triad leaders involved in the surge of violence, restoring some internal cohesion to the police force, and offering a new period of peace to Macau and its residents.
When you were shot, there were two different explanations given for the attack. The first was that it might have had something to do with your previous work as an intelligence officer in Macau. The second asserted that it was related to your role in gaming supervision, after you allegedly proposed the recruitment of Gurkhas and other tough solutions to enforce law and order inside the casinos. In your opinion, what was in fact the reason for the attack?
I went to Macau at two different times to play two different roles. The first was from October 1986 to July 1993, when besides serving as director of the Police Intelligence Unit, I also directed the Immigration and Identification Services and acted as liaison officer with our counterparts in Mainland China.
Macau. On November 17, 1996 Wan Kuok Koi travelled to Portugal. On the 26th, at 6:45pm, I suffered the assassination attempt.
You were one of the witnesses called by the Prosecutor’s office at Wan Kuok Koi’s trial, in early 1999. Did you really open the book then?
I came on my own initiative, but I must say I just answered what I was asked and did not add any other details about several cases that were still under investigation at the time. So, I would say that that trial did not clarify all issues regarding the triad crisis. I had much more to say.
Not a single murder related with that crisis led to a conviction. In fact, all triad leaders were punished merely for being involved in organised crime. Would you say that investigation efforts failed completely?
I can only comment on the attack against me. I had some precious information, for instance, on the murder of Gaming Inspector Francisco Amaral, but no one asked me about it. Regarding my case, of course I feel annoyed, as justice was not done. It was not submitted to any trial whatsoever, and, worse than that, I was recently informed that my case had been closed and archived even before I came back to testify at Wan Kuok Koi’s trial. Was there any failure? Sure, but what kind of failure?
Soon after Wan Kuok Koi was convicted, the South China Morning Post and other media reported that he would have a second trial, precisely to answer allegations of involvement in the attack against you. That second trial, however, never materialised. Do you know why?
No. I’m still quite surprised that there was no trial and that the case was archived without anyone being punished. It’s amazing. The case was closed October 23, 1998, and no one informed me about it, despite my obvious and relevant interest in the matter. To learn what happened, I had to write letters to the Macau SAR’s Public Prosecutor and then to Secretary for Administration and Justice, Florinda Chan – the first in January 2007, the second six months later. The reply, informing me the case was archived in 1998, was sent to me in December 2007, after my having to keep insisting in several different ways. Of course I feel very sad about all this. I might even say I’ve lost any confidence in Justice.
According to observers, some people responsible for the violence in the 90s are still free in Macau and doing business as usual. Do you share this opinion?
I suppose many of the people who were behind those crimes were sentenced to jail terms, but we all know that most of the authors of the lethal attacks were never convicted in local courts. Going back to my case, what can I do when someone decides to stop the investigation in 1998 and I’m informed about it only nine years later? Of course I wanted justice to be done, but someone did not allow it. Who? I don’t know.
Macau is now considered a very safe place, and that’s indeed been the situation since the handover to Chinese sovereignty in December 1999. Have you been following events here recently?
I love Macau and deeply admire its people. I would even say I consider it my second homeland. However, after the disappointment I had with the way the authorities dealt with my case, I must admit I allowed myself to open some distance between me and what is happening now in Macau. Therefore, there’s not much I know about the current situation. I would just say that safety has presumably been favoured by Macau’s political reintegration into China, by the growth and diversification of the gaming industry, and by the arrest of most of the people implicated in previous highly violent criminal activities.
The Portuguese authorities feared local triads would settle in Portugal just before the Handover, taking advantage of an expected mass exodus. Did they ever really do it?
I believe the triads never planned to leave Macau before the Handover. They just drew up a contingency plan in case something went wrong after 1999, and as many of their members had Portuguese passports, they had Portugal in mind as a provisional retreat or a stopover to other European Union countries. But that would have been considered, I repeat, only in the event the Handover went wrong, and in fact no one really expected that to happen.
Do you believe triads can be defeated once and for all, or must societies always be resigned to some sort of coexistence with them?
Triads were politically motivated when they first appeared, but in recent times, only organised crime has been relevant in their activities. I believe wherever selfish behaviour and economic rivalries, together with huge gaps between the rich and the poor, dominate societies, triads will find excellent conditions for growth. In other words, no, I don’t believe they can be suppressed in the near future.
Do you still fear for your life?
No. I never did, even when I knew my life was under serious threat. Of course, I was a bit more careful, especially during the night time, and that probably forced them to act in broad daylight. But, since I know I never did anything wrong, why should I fear for my life here in Portugal or anywhere else in the world?
Are you still haunted by memories of those dramatic moments when you were fighting for your life?
What happened then still has very serious implications in my life – physically, psychologically and professionally. But I would rather prefer not to comment on that.