Ex-triad leader jailed for life in Hong Kong over brutal killing outside hotel of senior gangster from rival group
- High Court jury finds Leung Kwok-chung, 54, guilty of murder over attack on Lee Tai-lung outside Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in the early hours of August 4, 2009
- Lee, 41, was knocked down by a seven-seater car and hacked to death by three knife-wielding men on the hotel’s doorstep
A former triad leader has been jailed for life in Hong Kong for orchestrating the killing of a senior member of a rival gang more than 14 years ago.
Madam Justice Judianna Barnes said society would not tolerate serious violence against an unarmed resident regardless of the assailant’s motives.
She jailed Leung for life – the mandatory sentence for murder in Hong Kong – after his lawyers decided not make any plea in mitigation.
Prosecutors had argued that Leung, then a senior member of the Wo Shing Wo triad group, masterminded the fatal attack on Lee, of the rival Sun Yee On gang, on the forecourt of the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui in the early hours of August 4, 2009.
They said Leung had a grudge against Lee over a 2006 brawl between the two groups at a bar in Tsim Sha Tsui East. The fight left the defendant with a scar down the right side of his face and throat.
Leung, nicknamed “Tattooed Chung”, left for mainland China about 55 hours before the 2009 attack but returned to Hong Kong by illegal means to make sure the plan was carried out smoothly.