Thomas Kwok tells of taking Big Spender's call that brother was kidnapped

Sun Hung Kai Properties co-chairman Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong took the witness stand at his graft trial yesterday and told how he negotiated his brother's release from kidnappers in 1997.

Walter Kwok Ping-sheung was chairman of the property giant when he was abducted by gangster "Big Spender" Cheung Tsz-keung and locked up for a week. Walter Kwok is not involved in the case.

Thomas Kwok recalled that he got a call from Cheung on the night of September 29.

"[Cheung] told me he had my elder brother," Kwok told the Court of First Instance. "He told me if I did not believe him, I could go to somewhere in Repulse Bay where I would find my elder brother's car.

"I immediately called my elder brother's wife, Wendy, who said Walter had not yet come back. I immediately called Thomas Chan Kui-yuen. Chan and I drove to the place at Repulse Bay and we did find the car." Chan is SHKP's executive director and a co-defendant.

That same night, Cheung called again. "He said he had to see me; he said to me: 'You can pick the place. You ask someone to come and drive me there'."

Kwok said he told Chan to pick Cheung up at the Sun Hung Kai Centre in Wan Chai.