Yoga ball murder trial: Malaysian professor?s mistress was his children?s tutor, Hong Kong court hears
ASEAN PLUS
Saturday, 25 Aug 2018
12:22 PM MYT
By Chris Lau
The mistress of a Malaysian professor ? accused of using a toxic yoga ball to murder his wife and daughter ? was his children?s tutor, the High Court in Hong Kong heard on Friday.
Khaw Kim-sun, 53, has denied murdering his wife, Wong Siew-fung, 47, and daughter Lily Khaw Li-ling, 16, who both died of carbon monoxide poisoning on May 22, 2015.
Wong?s close friend Foong Wai-yee took to the witness box on Friday and revealed the wife had first complained about her marriage around 2010 or 2011.
?The marriage hadn?t been a happy one for some time before her death,? said Foong, whose children attended the same playgroup as the Malaysian family.
Foong said Wong once revealed her husband had a new girlfriend and identified the mistress as Shara Lee, a tutor who taught Khaw?s children at their home between 2007 and 2008.
Witness Foong Wai-yee told the High Court that Wong Siew-fung needed counselling. Photo: Edmond So
The prosecutors had earlier mentioned Lee as an assistant in a fake research project involving rabbits that Khaw set up to obtain the carbon monoxide.
Khaw?s colleague, associate professor Dick Chow Ho-ku, said Khaw told him he would bring Lee to the university to observe the first experiment for the project on May 13, 2015, nine days before Khaw?s wife and daughter died. She turned up towards the end of the experiment, Chow recalled.
Foong also described how the mental condition of Wong, whom she would go to yoga and play badminton with, had deteriorated so badly she needed counselling and medical help.
?She was crying quite badly sometimes,? the witness, also from Malaysia, recalled.
She said the situation improved towards Wong?s death in 2015 because she had grown to accept the situation.
Foong described Lily, who also died in the car, as the most energetic of the couple?s four children: Mei-mei, the eldest daughter, Carly, the third daughter, and Didi, the youngest, their only son.
While Carly and Didi sat in the public gallery and waved at their helper when it was her turn to give evidence, Mei-mei is expected to take the stand herself soon.
Khaw Kim-sun has denied two counts of murder. Photo: Dickson Lee
Prosecutors earlier told the court about a ?calculated and deliberate? plot by Khaw, a former anaesthesiologist from Chinese University?s department of anaesthesia and intensive care, who placed a yoga ball leaking carbon monoxide in the boot of Wong?s car. The couple?s daughter was in the passenger seat on the day.
The court heard Khaw told police he acquired the gas to eradicate rats in his home, though the family?s helper Siti Maesaroh told the court on Friday she had never seen rats, or traces of them, in the house.
But she agreed in cross-examination the household kept two cats and she was once told they were there to catch rats.
The case continued before Justice Judianna Barnes Wai-ling on Monday.
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