Forty-seven-year-old
Chinese woman has been remanded in Lagos prison for attempting to kill
her lover, when she set a hotel in the Ikeja area of Lagos on fire.
The chinese couple
While speaking at the Ebute-Meta Magistrate’s court sitting in
Lagos state, a hotel attendant, Emeka Nwaegbo, has told the court that
47-year-old Chinese lady, Zhen Zhen attempted to kill her 41-year-old
lover, Leo Feng, when she set Ernest Hotel in the Ikeja area of Lagos on
fire.
At the resumed hearing of the case yesterday, Nwaegbo told the
court that Zhen accused Feng of sleeping with her at the hotel on Allen
Avenue, Ikeja, on July 4, without giving her food, which informed her
decision.
According to a report by Punch, Nwaegbo told the court that the
lovers were customers at the hotel, adding that Feng, who was indebted
to the hotel, dropped his personal effects, including passport, to
assure the management that he would pay his outstanding debts.
He said, “At about 10.30pm, they both checked into the hotel.
The man dropped his belt, money, passport and socks with the
receptionist downstairs because they owed the hotel some money.
“I was conducting a routine check round the hotel when I
discovered that the frontage of their room was littered with cigarette
stubs and broken plates. I told them to pack the dirt, but the
woman started shouting on me; I did not understand because she was
speaking in their language.
“I later went downstairs to call the manager. When she got there, she tried to calm them, but they did not listen to her. Some
minutes later, Feng came downstairs saying he wanted to collect what he
dropped at the reception. I gave him everything, except his passport.”
The attendant said as Feng was stepping out, someone raised the
alarm about fire, adding that he discovered that the fire started from
the suspects’ room, adding that he alerted the hotel manager to the
incident.
“When I asked the female suspect what happened, she said the
man starved her for two days and that was why she wanted to burn him in
the room. She said, ‘Two days, I no chop. I wan make e die.’ ”
Zhen, who spoke through an interpreter, denied the allegation, saying the fire started from a television in the room. “I
did not set the hotel on fire. The fire started from the television in
the room. I did not tell the room attendant that he (Feng) starved me
for two days; he is lying. We always bought food from a restaurant,” she said.
When the magistrate, Mrs. Bola Folarin-Williams, asked why she did
not call attention to the fire, she said she could not because she did
not know how to communicate with people in the hotel.
However, the representative of the Chinese embassy, Olayiwola, said the embassy wanted the law to take its course. “The embassy said the suspects did not come into the country through it. Also, it gathered that their passports are expired.”
The magistrate said the argument of the defendants on how the fire
started was unconvincing, and asked all the parties to meet and agree on
settlement terms, just as the hotel insisted on recovering its loss
which it estimated at over N17m.
The defendants were ordered to be remanded in prison until they
perfected their bail conditions as the case was adjourned till August 9,
2016.