Alleged blackmail victim denies using gangsters to get HK$5m 'tea money'
Alleged blackmail victim denies using triad-linked gangsters to enforce payment
A listed company's former chairman, who claimed to have been blackmailed, was accused in court yesterday of taking two gangsters to a lunch to force a businessman to pay HK$5 million in "tea money".
Defence lawyer Gary Plowman SC, representing Koon Wing-yee, made the allegation while cross-examining alleged victim Hui Chi-ming.
Hui, former chairman of Hong Kong-listed Sino Union Petroleum and Chemical International (Sunpec), rejected all the allegations, saying of Plowman: "I think he could change his profession to be a scriptwriter."
The lawyer alleged that Hui took one man with a Taiwan triad background and another called "Shanghai Boy" to a lunch meeting with Koon, 56, in March 2009.
Plowman said Hui told Koon that if he refused to pay the "tea money", Koon would not be able to receive 100 million shares Koon had purchased. Hui in the end agreed to accept HK$1.5 million.
The lawyer also said that although it was Hui accusing Koon and four other men of blackmailing him for hundreds of millions of shares, it had been Hui who arranged for a group of men dressed in black to sit next to Koon's table to enforce the "tea money" demand.