HK tycoon asked deities to bear witness to affair

A feng shui master fighting for the 13 billion dollar estate of an eccentric Hong Kong businesswoman told a court the pair asked Chinese deities to bear witness to their secret affair.

On the third day of his testimony in an epic court battle, Tony Chan, who claimed to be Nina Wang's lover, was asked about the purpose of his visit to a Chinese temple with the tycoon in 1992, which they recorded in a video.

"After we started to be together, nobody could be our witness. So... we purchased wine to drink in the temple (to) inform the gods that we were together," he said.

Lawrence Lok, lawyer for Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which is challenging Chan's claim to Wang's fortune, said his account of the event was a fabrication.

Lok said the real reason behind the visit was that the tycoon wanted to pray for the return of her kidnapped husband Teddy Wang -- an assertion Chan rejected.

Wang's husband was abducted for the second time in 1990. His body was never found and he was legally declared dead nine years after his disappearance.

Chan told the court Wang addressed him affectionately as "hubby pig" and "hubby king" at that time, and rarely spoke about Teddy.

Lok accused Chan of going out of his way to flatter the tycoon. Reading from the transcript of another video Chan had recorded, the lawyer said Chan used the word "beautiful" about 40 times in an extended compliment of her Qing Dynasty costume.

"In fact, you are always so beautiful, sweetheart baby," Chan said in the transcript.

Chan said the comments were nothing usual for a couple in love.

Hong Kong's High Court will decide whether Wang, who at one stage was Asia's richest woman, left her entire fortune to Chan when she died of cancer in 2007 aged 69.

Opposing Chan's claim is Wang's Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which is now controlled by her siblings, who say a will awarding the huge fortune to the soothsayer is a fake.

The case has filled the front pages of Hong Kong's media for weeks, with its mixture of wealth, love affairs and feng shui, an ancient Chinese system for channeling energy, which is popular in Hong Kong.