Kembo says he was extorted by shadowy gang

VANCOUVER – Accused serial killer Charles Kembo has pointed an accusing finger of blame at a shadowy gang he claims extorted nearly half a million dollars from him.

The former refugee from Malawi admitted in B.C. Supreme Court that he had sex in a public bathroom with his stepdaughter only hours before police believe she was brutally slain. But he insisted he didn’t kill her.

Kembo said Rita Yeung was grabbed by gangsters who have threatened and strong-armed him since 2001 and who surprised the incestuous couple during a second amorous bout in Richmond.

“I didn’t want to contact the police or let others contact the police on my behalf,” he explained about the kidnapping.

“I was afraid for Rita’s life . . . my experience with this gang, I had been frightened from the get go and I took them serious enough to go get what they wanted.”

It was the latest twist in the story of the 41-year-old charged with murdering his wife, her daughter, a mistress and a business partner.

He has pleaded not guilty to slaying Margaret Kembo, 44, who disappeared near the end of 2002; Arden Bernard Samuel, 38, killed in Oct. 2003; Siu Yin Ma, 55, found stuffed in a hockey bag in a slough near the Massey tunnel in Nov. 2004, and Yeung, 21, whose body was dumped in the Fraser River in July 2005.

During three days on the stand testifying in his own defence, Kembo admitted a litany of crimes from money-laundering and procuring false identification to fraud and counterfeiting business documents.

Kembo told a convoluted story that involved multiple aliases and corporate identities.

His shameless legerdemain involved a maze of international financial institutions and thickets of transactions.

He was a philandering Lothario sexually involved with numerous women.

But he maintains he isn’t a murderer.

Asked about the last day his stepdaughter Yeung was seen alive, July 24, 2005, Kembo said they had been running errands.

At one point, they stopped at the Holiday Inn on Broadway at Ash.

“We went to the male washroom and Rita and I were intimate,” Kembo told the jury.

He explained that he and Yeung had become lovers roughly 18 months after her mother allegedly flew to Hong Kong never to be heard from again.

After sex in the hotel bathroom, he said, he and Yeung travelled to Richmond and decided to get it on again when thugs grabbed her.

Instead of calling police after saving himself and returning to find a cryptic note, Kembo frantically tried to get the gang money – fearful, he said, that they would reveal his incestuous relationship to his live-in girlfriend.

Before going home to face her, he called a third woman and apologized for missing a date arranged for that evening.

He estimated he had paid the gang $460,000 between 2001 and 2005.

Did you ever see Yeung again after that day, his lawyer asked?

“I did not,” Kembo said.

Did you kill her?

“No, I did not kill Rita Yeung,” he replied.

Kembo was arrested a few days later, on July 29, 2005.

“I just want to be clear, to be clear, that I am at peace,” he said.

“I have not killed anybody in my life ever, starting with Margaret Kembo. I love her dearly to this day . . . she’s not dead.”

He continued:

“Miss Ma was a good friend, yes our relationship turned romantic after awhile. At no time did Miss Ma offend me or me offend her, we had a great relationship, a relationship that ended up sexual . . . I did not kill Miss Ma. I do not know who killed Miss Ma.”

His friend and partner?

“I did not kill Arden Samuels. I loved him as a brother. I don’t know who killed Arden Samuels or why?”

Kembo stared at the jury.

“As with Rita,” he continued, “what I did is something I am still dealing with. I see a counsellor over this matter. It’s something I will deal with for the rest of my life. The shame is painful, being unable to speak to my mother about it or family members . . . in a way I feel responsible for what happened to Rita, had I not gone with her that night she would be alive and with us today . . . . [but] I did not kill Rita. I love Rita dearly and I miss her the same. I did not ask anyone to kill Rita.”

He sat quietly.

The defence rested.

Kembo had been unruffled throughout, with nary a tear shed over the disappearance of his wife, the murder of a friend, the slaying of a lover, and the terrifying ordeal of his stepdaughter.

Yet he broke down late Thursday while reading a letter from one of his cellmates.

The odd emotional moment came as Kembo read aloud from a letter in which the prisoner professed not to have implicated Kembo in seven pages of suspicious notes discovered in his possession by police.

“I am no rat,” Kembo said before choking up.

He insisted afterwards that he had not offered the man money or threatened him to provide perjured testimony at the trial.

Instead, he claimed the man was actually a member of the gang trying to squeeze him for more money – another $150,000.

He faces cross-examination Monday. It promises to be better than any episode of Law & Order.