Local media says group is under police surveillance and will be kicked off island after expiration of entry permit on Saturday
DANNY.MOK@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Monday, 04 April, 2016, 10:36am
Police believe the flat was cleaned after the victim was killed, but some blood was found on the wall. Photo: Edward Wong
Four Hongkongers under Taiwanese police surveillance for their alleged connection to the body-in-cement murder might be expelled this week if the situation allows, Taiwan media reported on Sunday.
The National Police Agency in Taiwan earlier located the group – who are suspects in the case in which a decomposing body was found encased in cement – in a Taipei hotel. The victim’s identity has not been confirmed, but he is believed to be 28-year-old Cheung Man-li, who was reported missing last month.
The immigration agency in Taiwan confirmed the four had arrived on March 11 and checked into a hotel near Taipei Main Station. They were then monitored by Taiwanese police.
Local media said the 21-year-old main suspect’s entry permit would expire on Saturday, and the authorities were expected to expel the group if they had no plans to leave the island.
There is no extradition treaty between Hong Kong and Taiwan, which therefore has no legal grounds to arrest the suspects.
Cheung’s 26-year-old girlfriend was among five people – three men and two women – arrested in Hong Kong last week for conspiracy to commit murder after the body was uncovered in a Tsuen Wan flat on March 29.
Hong Kong police have been searching for the flat’s male tenant and his girlfriend. Another man, who pushed a trolley loaded with bags of cement into the building on March 4, is also being sought.
Police believe Cheung was killed when he went to the flat to demand payment of a HK$1 million debt.
Officers from the Hong Kong Island regional missing persons unit checked Cheung’s phone records and discovered the tenant was one of the last people he had been in contact with.
At the flat on Fui Yiu Kok Street, the badly decomposing body was found encased in a cement block that was one metre long, one metre wide and half a metre tall. It took firefighters several hours to crack open the cement.
Officers believe the flat was cleaned after the victim was killed inside, but some blood was found on the wall.
A Hong Kong police spokesman said they had not yet been notified about the details reported in the Taiwanese media.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1933441/cement-box-murder-four-suspects-who-fled-hong-kong-taipei
