Hong Kong - A will leaving the fortune of Asia's richest woman Nina Wang to a feng shui master was not genuine but a document used in a ritual to prevent her from dying of cancer, a Hong Kong court heard Tuesday. A lawyer for the family of the former head of the Chinachem property empire said the 2006 document upon which feng shui master Tony Chan bases his claim to her multi-billion-US-dollar estate was never intended as a will, but a document that superstitious Wang signed as part of a ceremony to extend her life as she died of ovarian cancer.
Lawyer Denis Chang told the Hong Kong high court that Chan persuaded Wang to dig holes in the basements of three of her company properties and to make three payments to him totalling hundreds of millions of US dollars as part of the ceremonies.
The claims against Chan, who says Wang was his secret lover for 14 years, came on the second day of a two-month hearing into the estate of the eccentric, pig-tailed billionaire who died in 2007 aged 69.
Chan claims they had a secret sexual relationship, meeting under the pretence of feng shui sessions, a traditional Chinese practice of divining the elements such as wind and water to ensure good fortune.
The opening testimony of Chan's lawyers was due to begin Tuesday afternoon and is expected to show photos and audio and video recordings as evidence of their relationship.
An earlier will of Wang exists, in which she leaves her estate, estimated at 100 billion Hong Kong dollars (13 billion US dollars) to a variety of charities.
The alleged affair between Wang and Chan is said to have begun three years after Wang's tycoon husband Teddy was kidnapped in 1990, never to reappear.
Wang inherited the Chinachem empire after Teddy's disappearance, confounding critics by building it up into a multi-billion-dollar business conglomerate.
Ironically, she fought a long legal battle herself with her elderly father-in-law who claimed Teddy's will leaving his fortune to her was also a forgery. She ultimately won the case.
