Officers also nab man whose staff card was found at crime scene, bringing total number in custody to five
CLIFFORD.LO@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Thursday, 31 March, 2016, 4:21pm
Cheung Man-li’s phone records led the Hong Kong Island regional missing persons unit to the flat in Tsuen Wan. Photo: Edward Wong
In a new twist to the case of the decomposing body found in a cement-filled box, the girlfriend of the missing man thought to be the victim has been arrested in connection with the murder, the Posthas learnt.
Officers investigating the gruesome discovery believe Cheung Man-li, 28, who was reported missing on March 6, was killed when he went to a Tsuen Wan industrial unit to demand the payment of a HK$1 million debt on March 4.
“We believe the body was placed on a mattress and fenced with four wooden pieces before tape was wrapped outside,” a source with knowledge of the investigation said.
Police believe cement powder was poured inside this makeshift box before a mixture of cement and water was added to form a block one metre long, one metre wide and half a metre tall.
It took firefighters several hours to crack open the cement and retrieve the badly decomposed body on Tuesday night.
Cheung’s girlfriend, 26, who had earlier reported him missing, was picked up by officers at her home in North Point on Wednesday, the source said. A 26-year-old man, whose staff card was found in the flat where the body was discovered, was nabbed in Ngau Tau Kok on Wednesday night.
The latest arrests were made hours after police picked up another three suspects – two men and one teenage girl – in connection with the case. All five Hongkongers, aged 16 to 26, were arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. As of 1pm on Thursday, the suspects were still being held for questioning and had not been charged.
Cheung was last seen entering the Fui Yiu Kok Street industrial building in Tsuen Wan on March 4. His body was found in a ninth-floor industrial unit which was being used as a residential flat occupied by a 27-year-old man and his girlfriend. The pair were Cheung’s friends.
Security camera footage from March 4 showed a trolley loaded with bags of cement being pushed into the building by a man in his 20s.
According to police, the victim has not yet been identified, but clothes found on the body matched those worn by Cheung.
Police are still hunting for the two tenants of the flat and the man who delivered the cement.
“Initial investigations indicate the male tenant and his girlfriend had fled Hong Kong in the middle of this month,” another source said, adding that the pair had allegedly left for Taiwan.
The source said officers had to discuss the case with colleagues from the force’s liaison bureau before deciding on whether they should seek help from the Taiwanese authorities.
While Hong Kong has signed agreements for the surrender of fugitive offenders with countries such as the United States, Britain and India, it still has no formal extradition agreement with mainland China, or with Taiwan or Macau.
The grisly details of the case first emerged on Tuesday when officers from the Hong Kong Island regional missing persons unit checked Cheung’s phone records and discovered that the Tsuen Wan flat’s tenant was one of the last people he had been in contact with.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1932307/new-twist-cement-murder-case-hong-kong-police-arrest
