‘The Hong Kong guys will kill you’: Elizabeth Zhong told New Zealand police of gang violence threats before murder, court hears

Zhong, a Chinese woman who was stabbed more than 20 times in November 2020, alerted police to threats made on her life in the months before her murder

‘It’s not me. It’s the Hong Kong guys. They will be always after you,’ her estranged business partner allegedly said. ‘Court won’t kill you, but they will.’

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Elizabeth Zhong, also known as Ying Zhong, was found murdered in Auckland in November 2020. Photo: New Zealand Police Handout via New Zealand Herald

Published: 10:03am, 10 May 2022Updated: 10:14am, 10 May 2022

Eleven months before she was stabbed more than 20 times in an east Auckland suburb, Chinese woman Elizabeth Zhong filed a sworn affidavit stating that her estranged business partner had warned her of his gang connections in Hong Kong, a New Zealand court heard.

The affidavit, which Zhong filed in January 2020 as she and business partner Fang Sun were engaged in a heated civil battle over control of their multimillion dollar company, was read aloud alongside multiple other threat reports on Tuesday at Sun’s murder trial in the High Court at Auckland.

Zhong’s body was discovered by police on November 28, 2020 in the boot of her black, blood-smeared Land Rover, which had been left parked on a residential street in Sunnyhills, an east Auckland neighbourhood.

Police and forensics investigators pictured at Elizabeth Zhong’s home in the east Auckland suburb of Sunnyhills in November 2020. Photo: Sylvie Whinray/New Zealand Herald

Sun, 48, is accused of attacking Zhong in the bedroom of her home on the night of November 27, 2020.

Among the statements read out on Tuesday was a subsequent March 2020 affidavit at the North Shore Police Centre in which jurors heard, in Zhong’s own words, the unease she said the threats had caused.

“During these discussions [to resolve the civil case], Fang has become angry and furious at me,” she told police. “His face turns red and he starts waving his arms. He has made verbal threats and tried to intimidate me.”