Thesun 2009-04-15 Page09 Siege Peacefully

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| WEDNESDAY APRIL 15 2009

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However, a festive spirit returned yesterday, as people came out onto the streets to soak each other with water, a tradition of Songkran, the Thai New Year. The government announced the three-day holiday would be extended for the rest of the week, although financial markets will open as normal tomorrow. Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said red-shirted protesters had tried to stop transmission of a state television channel in two places on Monday, and

Tycoon’s will only for feng shui, court told

Thaksin supporters surrender by raising their hands yesterday.

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siege peacefully

Thaksin supporters were thwarted from setting up a blockade in his northern Chiang Mai stronghold, police there said. “This is not the end,” one protest leader, Nattawut Saikuar, told Reuters. “We’ll be back. Our leaders will meet after Songkran to discuss our next move.” Abhisit told Reuters in the early hours yesterday it was a “do-or-die” moment for the rule of law and he would not negotiate with Thaksin. He said dissolving parliament in order to hold elections could lead to electoral violence, but he would listen to the grievances of protesters. The end to the protests is a blow to Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup and living in exile to avoid jail on a corruption conviction. He had been calling for a “people’s revolution” that for now has fizzled. – Reuters

HONGKONG: A man who says late Hongkong tycoon Nina Wang was his lover has been accused of basing his claim to her fortune on a will which was only to be used as part of a feng shui ritual, a court heard yesterday. Tony Chan, a feng shui master, told Wang to draw up a will to be burnt later to give her long life as part of the ancient Chinese practice, according to an expert report submitted by Wang’s family to the city’s high court. Instead Chan kept the document and used it to claim her estate, the court was told. “Mrs Wang merely executed the 2006 will, if she did, on instructions of Chan, as part of feng shui procedures,” the report said. But Edward Chan, counsel for Tony Chan, said it was unfair to make an allegation of fraud against his client based on the report, written by another feng shui expert. Wang died of cancer in 2007, aged 69, leaving an estate estimated to be worth up to HK$100 billion (RM46 billion) which has been the subject of a bitter legal dispute. Chan claimed to have had a longstanding relationship with the eccentric billionaire, and says she made a will in 2006 naming him as her sole beneficiary. But Wang’s family lays claim to an earlier 2002 will. They had argued earlier that Wang did not have the mental capacity to execute the alleged will because of her health problems. Last month, the family’s lawyers told the court they had evidence from a forensic handwriting expert that the signature on the alleged will was fake. Judge Johnson Lam said he would not delve into the arguments over feng shui practices. “This is not a court of feng shui,” he said. – AFP