Daughter testifies in Hong Kong ‘yoga ball’ murder trial

HONG KONG: The daughter of an anaesthetist accused of gassing his wife and another daughter to death using a yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide described her dead sister as her “soulmate” in a court.

Prosecutors have accused Khaw Kim-sun of leaving the inflatable ball in the boot of a car where the gas leaked out and killed his wife and 16-year-old daughter Lily.

Khaw, 53, was having an affair and his wife would not grant him a divorce, prosecutors said.

They accused him of hatching a deliberate plot to murder her, but said it was likely he had not intended to kill his daughter.

Khaw’s eldest daughter May-ling, 19, spoke of her sister at the High Court trial yesterday.

“Lily was two-and-half years younger than me. She was probably my soulmate. We were very close and we had a lot in common,” she told the court.

She described her sister as brave and a “free spirit” but also said she was impulsive and quick to anger, without giving further details.

May-ling said she was aware of her father’s affair with Shara Lee, who was her Chinese tutor and also taught Lily.

“At first I felt slightly betrayed but at the same time my parents hadn’t been getting along well. I could understand my father would find someone and I felt bad for my mum,” she told the court.

Khaw’s wife Wong Siew-fung and Lily were found on a roadside in a locked yellow Mini Cooper in 2015, in a case which initially baffled police.

The pair were certified dead at the same hospital where Khaw worked and a post-mortem concluded they had died from inhaling carbon monoxide.

Police found a deflated yoga ball in the back of the car.

Witnesses have told the police they saw Khaw with the yoga ball at the university. The case continues tomorrow. — AFP