2.
1
their stalls throughout the length of a lane connecting Yue Man Square
with Kun Tong Road. Due to the approach of the festival business was
brisk, and the lane was fairly crowded. Suddenly, a group of men
estimated to number about twenty, holding white cloths in their mouths
as a means of identifying each other, and carrying large knives, ran
through the lane from end to end slashing and chopping the victims who
were mainly fruit hawkers, but included a passerby. The deceased LAM
Po, a fruit hawker, was chopped on the head causing deep injury to his
brain resulting in his death some eleven hours later. The seven
victims of the wounding charges received multiple chop wounds a number
of which were serious.
The evidence indicated that for some years there has been ill
feeling between the hawkers, and that this was based on rival clan
loyalties between Chiu Chow of the Fong and Cheng families. The ill
feeling had manifested itself in a number of disputes, seldom however
leading to violence and apparently never previously resulting in
serious injury. The accused FONG Chong-ming was a fruit hawker in the
lane. On the 6th September 1973 he had a dispute with CHENG Kam-ho
the victim in the second count, who had a stall next to him, concerning
alleged infringement by FONG Chong-ming of the boundaries of CHENG Kam-
ho's stall. That dispute ended with FONG Chong-ming going off and not
returning to his stall or to the lane until the time of the attack. It appears that the attack was organised to teach a lesson to those
fruit hawkers who were in the opposite camp to FONG Chong-ming and to
assert the power of the Fongs.
The accused MA Sung-lee and KWOK Ki-cheong were not apparently known to any of the hawkers in the lane and no witness
gave evidence of seeing them there. However just after the attack
had taken place they together with another man, who subsequently
escaped, crossed Kun Tong Road opposite the end of the lane and
boarded a taxi which was then stopped at a pedestrian crossing. They told the driver to drive forward and upon his asking for more detailed
instructions they simply said 'Wongtaisin'. The driver noticed that
the one who subsequently escaped was holding a water melon knife which
appeared to have fresh blood on it. On the driver appearing
apprehensive they told him not to be afraid as they had been in a
4