Tea-house killers launch appeals

This headline caught my attention .. page 3 of South China Morning Post
story by: Fox Yi Hu Aug 22, 2007
NOT a story about tea .. only the location of a crime ..
Five men convicted of an execution-style killing at the Luk Yu Tea House in Central are expected to face court again early next year after they appealed to a higher mainland court.
The hitman, Yang Wen, is seeking to have his death sentence overturned, although he had pleaded guilty and asked the court for the penalty last year.

Former Hong Kong actor Yeung Ka-on, who was jailed for life by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court last month, has lodged an appeal against his conviction to the Guangdong Higher People's Court.
Also appealing either their sentences or convictions are Hong Kong triad boss Lau Yat-yin, former Macau casino manager Tse Bing and former PLA soldier Zhang Zhixin.
Judges from the Guangdong Higher People's Court will go to Shenzhen to hear the appeals as transferring the felons to Guangzhou would be risky and costly, according to sources.
Hong Kong businessman Harry Lam Hon-lit, 54, was shot at point-blank range as he was taking breakfast in the tea house in Stanley Street on November 30, 2002.
A bloodstained jacket and a handgun found in Sheung Wan that day eventually led police to the culprits in a three-year investigation.
Yeung, popular among those who grew up in the golden era of Hong Kong television in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was found to be the mastermind.
The court found that Yeung instructed Lau to plan the killing. Lau offered to pay Tse HK$2 million for the job, although Tse ended up collecting only HK$1.1 million in Macau.
Tse then hired Zhang and Yang, both Hunan natives, for HK$400,000 and arranged for them to come to Hong Kong, the court found. Yang was paid HK$160,000 for executing the plan.
Both Lau and Tse were jailed for life, while Zhang was given 13 years' imprisonment for planning the murder with Yang.
All journalists were barred from the murder trial in Shenzhen last month.
Wu Weiwu, 31, also a Hunan native, received a jail term of three years for arranging a hideout for Zhang and Yang, but was released last month after having already spent that time in custody.
Lam was a director of Digger Holdings and an investor in the Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen.