DyingTycoon Told Of `Being Under Curse'

Billionaire Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum believed someone placed a curse on her, just months before she died of cancer in April 2007, a court heard yesterday. Dr David Ho Wai-tak also told the Court of First Instance that Wang appeared mentally unstable when he met her in September 2006, and when she told him a friend had offered to exorcise the curse by taking her underwear and strands of hair to the mainland. Ho, a general surgeon at Baptist and St Teresa's hospitals, testified he first met Wang in 2004, when he acted on behalf of Baptist to purchase a block of property from the Chinachem Group. A few days after a meeting between Chinachem and the hospital, at which the billionaire was not present, Wang called Ho and said she would like to seek a medical opinion from him. The two arranged a lunch date, during which Wang appointed Ho as an "honorary medical adviser." The third and final occasion Ho saw Wang was in September 2006.Nina Wang Kung Yu-sumHo said he was shocked because Wang had lost a lot of weight and her voice had changed. Wang told him she felt very uncomfortable and was a bit scared as "she felt someone was following her and doing her harm." "[Wang said] `I thought recently somebody has put a curse on me,"' Ho testified. "I figured she was ... mentally and physically not well ... sometimes mentally incoherent." He said he advised Wang to see a doctor. Wang then told Ho a good friend - whom she did not identify - had said he could help her. She said the friend "asked me for my underwear and strands of hair, which he could take to the mainland to do something [with them]. He said after that I would be okay." Wang also told Ho people had asked her to sign blank documents, and that she was still being followed. Fung shui master Yu Chi-lun was another to testify yesterday. He had provided fung shui services for Wang in 2005. Yu had been anonymously sought by Wang to check on the compatibility between her and Tony Chan Chun- chuen. Chan is expected to testify today.