Pretrial jail for 4 over gruesome murder of Hong Kong model
Hong Kong, Feb 27 (EFE).- A Hong Kong court on Monday put Abby Choi’s ex-husband and in-laws in pretrial detention in connection with the gruesome murder of the popular model, whose dismembered body was discovered in a village house.
On Sunday, police arrested the victim’s ex-husband, Alex Kwong, 28, along with his brother Anthony Kwong, 31, and father Kwong Kau, 65, and charged them with murder.
Her 63-year-old ex-mother-in-law has also been detained.
Police identified a skull, several ribs, and hair, believed to be Choi’s remains, in a steel soup pot from a rental house in Lung Mei Village.
Other body parts, including her torso and hands, remain missing.
The police continue to find remains of the woman’s body, whose murder shocked the former British colony
Senior prosecutor Brian Lai Tak-ki sought a 10-week adjournment to continue the probe which includes forensic examinations of evidence seized from the home where the remains were found and a follow-up to the cell phone conversation records of the accused.
Kwong was on the run and was wanted by authorities over his involvement in a 5 million Hong Kong dollars ($636,000) gold scam.
Choi was reported missing on Wednesday.
On Friday, authorities found the model’s legs in a refrigerator in a house recently rented by her ex-father-in-law.
“A meat slicer, an electric saw and some clothing in suspected connection with the case were seized at scene,” a police statement said.
Choi, who had almost 100,000 followers on Instagram, enjoyed international exposure and appeared on the digital cover of L’Officiel Monaco fashion magazine last week.
She was also seen at the Elie Saab Spring Summer 2023 Haute Couture show in Paris in January.
Two days after the disappearance, police found the woman’s legs in a refrigerator in a house rented by her ex-father-in-law.
Police allege that the ex-father-in-law could have masterminded the murder plot because of a property dispute.
Choi, who had almost 100,000 followers on Instagram, had become an internationally-known model after she attended Elie Saab’s spring-summer 2023 haute couture show in Paris.
She appeared on the digital cover of the luxury magazine ‘ L’Officiel Monaco’.
The model had a net worth of about 100 million Hong Kong dollars ($12.7 million) and came from a wealthy family with businesses in China.
The authorities indicated that the two children that Choi had with her ex-husband would remain in the custody of the model’s mother. EFE
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