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.
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