When David Wong Kin-chin sets foot in Hong Kong, he will escape the shadow of an injustice that has galvanised not only Asian-Americans but also human rights activists and legal heavyweights.
He has spent the past 20 years in some of New York state's bleakest and most brutal maximum security prisons - for a murder he did not commit. But sometime in the next two weeks he expects to be taken in handcuffs from the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility for the journey back to Hong Kong, where relatives, friends and supporters are planning a reunion party.
'My mum is very excited to pick him up at the Hong Kong airport, even though she doesn't know when. They haven't seen each other for more than 20 years,' says Wong's niece, Yeung Fei-fei, 28, an electrical engineering student in New York.
In a July 16 letter to one of his supporters, Wong says: 'I'm hoping by the end of this month, I will be in Hong Kong - free and chilling. I'll never forget your kindness. The struggle is everywhere in this world and it must continue.'
Wong, 43, was born in Fujian province . He dropped out of school when he was 14 and moved to Hong Kong to be reunited with his mother and sister. His troubles began after his mother decided to ship her 18-year-old son illegally to New York, where his father worked in a Chinatown restaurant.
Speaking no English, he drifted from restaurant to restaurant. In 1983, a friend coaxed him into trying to help rob his boss, a Chinese restaurant owner on Long Island.