Abby Choi’s ex-mother-in-law urged delay in calling police until ransom from ‘kidnappers’, court hears

The former mother-in-law of slain Hong Kong socialite Abby Choi Tin-fung tried to prevent her family from reporting her disappearance to police by suggesting that they wait for her “kidnappers” to issue their demands, a court has heard.

Choi’s partner, Chris Tam Fong-chun, told the High Court on Wednesday that Jenny Li Sui-heung had tried to paint the influencer’s disappearance as an abduction, saying he should delay calling police until after the perpetrators contacted him.

“Li Sui-heung said to me: ‘Maybe they just want money. They still haven’t called you. If you report to police now, how can they extort money from you?’” Tam said on the second day of his testimony.

The 28-year-old model was last seen alive on February 21, 2023, before parts of her dismembered remains were discovered at a flat in Tai Po’s Lung Mei Village three days later.

Choi’s ex-husband, Alex Kwong Kong-chi, 31, his father, Kwong Kau, 68, and his elder brother, Anthony Kwong Kong-kit, 35, are on trial after pleading not guilty to a joint count of murder. Li is not a defendant in the trial.

The elder Kwong, a retired police sergeant, has also denied preventing the burial of Choi’s body, an offence to which his two sons pleaded guilty before the trial began last month.

Prosecutors argued the murder arose from a family feud over the proposed sale of a HK$72 million (US$9.2 million) flat at the upscale Kadooria development in Ho Man Tin.

Kwong Kau, the property’s registered owner, allegedly resented Choi for trying to sell the flat and enlisted his two sons to help kill the influencer so he could keep it for himself.

Tam said his partner became unreachable by phone after she sent him the last message at 2.06pm on February 21. He initially thought her phone was malfunctioning, but later found it unusual that her phone appeared to have been turned on and off when location data suggested the device was in Tai Po.

Tam said the Kwong brothers and their mother appeared calm and unconcerned by Choi’s disappearance when he visited them at the Kadooria flat that evening.

The court heard Tam and Choi’s mother, Cheung Yin-fa, filed a missing-person report at Cheung Sha Wan Police Station later that night.

Cheung also called the Kwong brothers to ask about her daughter’s whereabouts but ended up quarrelling with them, Tam said.

The next day, Tam asked Anthony Kwong, who was serving as Choi’s stand-in chauffeur at the time, to show him where he dropped off the socialite in Tai Po the previous day.

The witness said Anthony Kwong, whom he also referred to as Damon, “beat around the bush” and claimed that Choi got off “around the area of Tai Po centre”, suggesting that she might have gone into one of the many shopping centres in the district.

Choi’s former brother-in-law also allegedly put on an act by driving Tam to Tai Po on February 23 to help him look for Choi, before a police officer called Tam that afternoon saying the force seriously suspected that the Kwong family was linked to the model’s disappearance.

Tam said Anthony Kwong subsequently met police ostensibly to offer help before he was arrested in the early hours of the following day.

The witness appeared emotional as he lamented his failure to realise sooner that those close to him could have been behind the crime.

“So when I look back at the conversations, it turns out that you were taking me in another direction, and all along you were just lying to me and deceiving me,” he added, addressing Anthony Kwong.

The trial continues before Deputy Judge Brian Keith and a nine-member jury.