It was obvious to the legal observers who watched the lurid drama unfold that this wasn't anything like a typical criminal trial. Lawyers suggested that this was a wild American soap opera transplanted to Asia.

From June 6 to September 2, two well-respected attorneys - chief prosecutor Peter Chapman, and barrister Alexander King for the defense - pitted themselves against each other to prove either that the wife of a successful banker had drugged and bludgeoned him to death in cold blood, or that she had defended herself against him in a life-or-death struggle the night he died.

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The defense's case was built on the premise that a woman can be so battered by years of abuse that she may commit murder. But this is an American, or a Western, defense, lawyers say. It doesn't happen here.

"You are left to run self-defense if you want to get off scot-free," said Daniel Marash, a lawyer in King's chambers and a colleague of Gary Plowman, Kissel's first defense counsel.

The Department of Justice has no information on how many wives have pleaded self defense in murder cases in Hong Kong.

But, knowing local juries to be practical, lawyers doubted the ploy would work. They reasoned that jurors would get to the point and avoid the lurid details.

"Juries here are stoic, stone-faced, pragmatic and with their feet on the ground," said well-known barrister Kevin Egan, adding that the jury just wouldn't buy the drama.

"To run this case, you would need [a jury of] cuckoos from Connecticut and neurotics from New York," he said.

But lawyers, who have nothing but good things to say about Chapman and King, had questions about the defense case in light of Kissel's testimony.

"How can she explain away the events following the death? If she had called the police, of course there would be forensic evidence," said barrister Cheng Huan.

"You cannot have a proper medical examination because all the primary evidence has been destroyed. All the contemporary evidence is gone," he said. "It comes down to credibility."

Andrew Bruce, a friend of King's, said the case was a one-off, and that one of the greatest challenges would have been to keep the jury focused on facts that would lend support to the case.

"It tests the communications skills of lawyers. For the defense counsel, the thing that looms largest over you [is] whether the accused is going to make a decent fist of it," he said. It is the hardest thing to give advice to a client because, in the end, a lawyer is paid to represent his client.

"That's what we do. We advise. We sometimes strongly advise. "

But, he added, lawyers don't lie. "You are entitled to ask questions, draw things out, but make up the story, no, thank you."

Alan Hoo, a lawyer, was sitting in Lippo Centre sipping an iced tea almost a week before the defense rested.

"There he is, the famous Sandy King!" he shouted, a grin spreading across his face, just as the defense lawyer walked smartly out of Lippo Tower I with his document case in hand.

How was the case, Hoo asked him, what would the defense do next?

King explained warmly that the defense would lay out its closing arguments.

Then he walked away.