Hong Kong - A popular Hong Kong magazine was Tuesday fined for publishing a nude photograph of a famous actress who had been kidnapped and stripped by gangsters 18 years ago. The picture of Carina Lau, published in East Week magazine in 2002, was taken in 1990 when the actress was picked up by a group of triad gangsters, stripped and forced to pose for photographs.
Publication of the topless photo of a blindfolded and clearly distressed Lau on the front cover of the magazine, owned at the time by businessman Albert Yeung, caused a huge outcry.
Actors including action star Jackie Chan staged public protests over the picture and the outcry forced the magazine to stop publication for a year.
Yeung sold the magazine before its relaunch. At Tuesday's long-delayed hearing, the magazine's current owner, the New Media Group, admitted distributing obscene articles and was fined 20,000 Hong Kong dollars (2,560 US dollars).
Lau, now aged 43, later said the picture was taken against her will when she was bundled into a car and blindfolded by the gangsters while she was a young starlet.
In a recent interview, Lau said the gangsters targeted her because she refused a film role offered to her by their boss. Hong Kong's film industry is notorious for its links with the city's triad gangs.
Lau has starred in dozens of box office hits in Hong Kong including the Infernal Affairs series of films. She married her long-time boyfriend Tony Leung Chiu-wai in a lavish multi-million dollar ceremony in Bhutan in July.
Hong Kong's triad gangs are secret criminal societies that operate in the city and overseas' Chinese communities.
Triad gangsters are reckoned by Hong Kong police to be responsible for 3 per cent of all crime in the former British colony.
