HONG KONG (Agencies): The mother of slain Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung has denied in court that she was repeatedly in debt because of gambling, calling her former son-in-law’s claim that he had financially supported her “a pack of lies”.
Cheung Yin-fa accused Alex Kwong Kong-chi on Monday of acting unscrupulously by demanding the return of HK$150,000 in shopping expenses she owed him, while failing to repay any of the more than HK$70 million he had received from Choi for investment, reported the South China Morning Post.
Wrapping up her five-day testimony in the High Court, Cheung also rejected the defence’s suggestion that she was so addicted to mahjong that Choi had to pledge a property she received as a wedding gift to secure a HK$4 million mortgage to repay her mother’s debts.
A police investigator told the High Court that the mother of slain socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung had reported being threatened in an alleged HK$1.6 million extortion attempt by people claiming links to a triad, despite insisting she owed no gambling debt.
The evidence was heard on the 15th day of the High Court trial over the February 2023 murder and dismemberment of the 28-year-old.
Meanwhile, The Standard of Hong Kong reported that an investigator surnamed Ko testified on Tuesday that he contacted Choi’s mother, Cheung Yin-fa, on the night of her first day of testimony. He asked about a Whampoa Garden property after her evidence that it was jointly owned by her and her husband appeared to conflict with police records.
Ko acknowledged that he should not have contacted a witness during the trial, but said their conversation was limited to obtaining the property’s address. Cheung later admitted that she had misspoken.
Under cross-examination by Anthony Kwong Kong-kit’s defense counsel, Trevor Beel, Ko was questioned about WeChat messages exchanged with Cheung.
Earlier this year, Cheung sent him a photo of a banner accusing her of borrowing money and refusing to repay it.
She later told Ko that red paint had been splashed on her car and forwarded voice messages in which she said she was being blackmailed and threatened with decapitation if she did not pay.
Cheung said the dispute stemmed from a gambling disagreement with an acquaintance years earlier and had been settled seven years ago.
She maintained that she owed nothing, although people claiming ties to the Sun Yee On triad allegedly demanded HK$1.6 million.
Beel pointed to inconsistencies in Cheung’s account of how long she had been out of contact with the acquaintance, while she also said they had occasionally played mahjong together. Ko agreed that the accounts were contradictory.
Beel also asked whether police had investigated messages in which Cheung said she had lost “tens of millions” at a mahjong parlor in Jordan.
Ko said the matter had not been a focus of the murder investigation and he could not verify whether the amount was accurate or exaggerated.
Meanwhile, Kwong Kau’s defense counsel, Oliver Davies, questioned Ko about further inconsistencies in Cheung’s evidence over property ownership. She had said at one point that she owned no property in Hong Kong, but later referred to property jointly owned by herself and Choi.
Ko said investigators had prioritized reviewing the large volume of evidence in the murder case rather than verifying Cheung’s property holdings.
Separately, Choi’s husband, Chris Tam Fong-chun, testified about how the couple met and their relationship.
Tam said he and Alex Kwong Kong-chi had been secondary school classmates. While visiting Hong Kong from Australia in late 2013 or early 2014, Tam said Kwong contacted him through Facebook and introduced him to Choi, whom Kwong was married to and living with at Whampoa Garden.
Tam said he continued seeing the couple after returning to Hong Kong in 2015 until Kwong suddenly disappeared. He was unable to contact Kwong again until they met in 2022.
After Kwong disappeared, Tam said he often accompanied Choi while she cared for her two children with Kwong. Tam and Choi grew closer and began dating on December 8, 2015. They married in early 2016 and had a daughter that September.
Choi later moved in with Tam and his parents at Manhattan Hill, while her two children with Kwong remained at Laguna Verde with a domestic helper. Tam said Choi visited them daily and that he had helped care for the children since Kwong disappeared.
Alex Kwong, his brother Anthony Kwong and their father, Kwong Kau, are jointly charged with Choi’s murder. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Kwong Kau has also pleaded not guilty to preventing Choi’s lawful burial. His two sons pleaded guilty to that charge before the trial.
