An ailing Hong Kong tycoon gave her feng shui master more than US$264 million in the hope that it would help to prolong her life, a court heard yesterday.
Tony Chan (陳振聰), a bartender-turned-soothsayer who says he is the sole beneficiary of Nina Wang’s (龔如心) US$13 billion estate, told Hong Kong’s High Court he had received three tranches of HK$688 million (US$88.2 million) each from Wang between 2005 and 2006.
Lawrence Lok (駱應淦), lawyer for Chinachem Charitable Foundation, a group controlled by Wang’s siblings, which is challenging Chan’s claim, asked the feng shui master why he was given the lavish sums of money.
“It’s a gift to me. She addressed me as her hubby. She loved me. So it’s a gift,” said Chan, who also said he was Wang’s lover.
However, Lok pointed out that the money was advanced during a time when Wang’s health was deteriorating, after she was diagnosed with cancer in late 2004. She died of the disease in 2007, aged 69.
Lok reminded the court of earlier testimony by a doctor who had said that a feng shui master had told Wang he could improve her health by taking her hair and clothes to China.
The lawyer added that another witness who traveled with Wang to Singapore for medical treatment in 2006 had said she had overheard Wang on the phone with Chan saying: “You are useless and I am not getting any better.”
“You told Mrs Wang that you have means to prolong her life,” Lok told Chan.
Chan denied the allegation, saying that he did not have such an ability.
The court will decide whether Wang, who at one stage was Asia’s richest woman, left her entire fortune to Chan when she died. Chinachem says a will awarding the huge fortune to Chan is a fake.
The case has filled the pages of Hong Kong’s newspapers for weeks, with its mixture of wealth, love and feng shui, the ancient Chinese system of channeling energy.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not