Cult leader founded 3 groups: pastor

The leader of a religious cult connected with the disappearance of ex-insurance agent Tam Pui-kwan in Malaysia has founded at least three such groups in the past 13 years, it emerged yesterday.

Timothy Kwok Chiu-nam, deputy chief executive of the Hong Kong Christian Short-term Mission Training Centre, which tracks non-mainstream religious groups in Hong Kong, said Leung Chi-hau first became known in Christian circles in 1993 when he was leading another religious group, Gospel of Grace Church.

'He managed to link up with the pastors of several churches in Tseung Kwan O district and became their co-ordinator. He was very active at the time and hence no one questioned his religious belief then,' said Mr Kwok, who is a pastor himself.

The Reverend Liu Tak-hon, chairman of the Tseung Kwan O Pastors' Fellowship, said when he first met Mr Leung in the early 1990s, he was just a normal preacher with high aspirations. 'Instead of the long-hair and bearded image we see in the newspapers, his look was exactly the opposite. It was only when he started his own group that the change came,' he said.

In 1997, Mr Leung founded another religious group, Hallelujah Church, in Tseung Kwan O. It is unrelated to another local Christian group bearing the same name, said Mr Kwok. During the same year, he registered a third group under the name Harvest Church Limited, reportedly in Mongkok. The group is said to have about 20 members.

'It is not a cult as reported by some media. In fact, it is only a religious group claiming to act under the Christian banner to attract followers, but if this is the case, then much of the evidence we have learnt so far has suggested that it has very questionable Christian values,' Mr Kwok said.