Legislative Council President Rita Fan revealed that she had twice met Cheng Shousan, whose late-night phone call to Allen Lee prompted the radio host to quit, while he was in Hong Kong recently.

She said it was a very small matter for a person to contact his old friends while he happened to be in Hong Kong.

Allen Lee testified at the Legislative Council last week a retired mainland official "surnamed Chen" phoned him on the night of May 18 to influence the way he ran the talkshow programme. It was confirmed later that "Chen" was actually Cheng, the ex-deputy director of the Office of Hong Kong and Macao Affairs of the Foreign Ministry.

Fan recalled that Cheng also phoned her in the morning of May 16.

She invited him to have lunch that day with other members of the Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong SAR.

Two days later, she met Cheng again (he was bringing along with him a few people from the Shandong Social Sciences Academy).

Many people from the mainland had asked to see her to learn more about Hong Kong; but she had declined those she did not know well, Fan said.

"They asked more or less the same questions such as the way local people see the Hong Kong SAR government and are the people unhappy because of the economic downturn? Politically, they also liked to know Hong Kong people's views on constitutional development in future."

Asked if Lee had overreacted, Fan said different people could feel differently.

Another Preparatory Committee member Maria Tam, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), said Cheng was only seeking to meet his old friends in Hong Kong.

As to whether Cheng would exert pressure on other people, she responded: "How come? He is such a nice person."

Li Fei, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee, said the truth of the incident involving Lee and Cheng "had been fully revealed".

"I have nothing more to say about this," he said after attending a local event.

(HK Edition 06/02/2004 page2)