Hong Kong  - A suspected arsonist accused of killing 17 people in a fire in a Hong Kong karaoke bar has been charged with murder after 11 years on the run, police said Sunday.

Choi Kam-fai will appear in a Hong Kong court on Monday to face charges of murder and arson in relation to the fatal attack in which karaoke customers were burnt to death.

Choi was arrested by police in the Chinese border city of Shenzhen in late November and returned to Hong Kong on Friday, a police spokesman said.

The 33-year-old is allegedly one of three members of a triad gang who hurled fire bombs into a crowded karaoke bar in Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui district in January
1997.

Triad gangs are mafia-style secret societies that run extortion, drugs and prostitution rackets and are reckoned by police to be responsible for 3 per cent of all crime in Hong Kong. (dpa)