The Hong Kong Hospital Authority has agreed to pay a substantial but undisclosed sum in final settlement of legal action brought by the widower of Indian Malaysian lawyer Harinder Veriah 10 years ago.

Lawyer Harinder had felt that she was at the "bottom of the pile" in receiving treatment for a grand mal epileptic fit at Ruttonjee Hospital in Hong Kong, because of her skin colour. She died in the hospital on Jan 2, 2000.

Her husband, British journalist Martin Jacques, and their 11-year-old son Ravi, then embarked on a battle to force the Hong Kong Hospital Authority and government to face the consequences of racial discrimination linked to her death.

"To achieve some semblance of justice for Hari has taken 10 unbelievably painful years. Against all odds, our arguments about negligence and prejudice have been vindicated," Jacques said.

"I had never engaged in litigation in my life. Hari's cardinal rule was ‘it never pays to litigate', but I was fighting for justice for her".

Media attention surrounding Veriah's death catalysed the passing of the first anti-racism law in Hong Kong in 2008. Jacques has also set up a charity trust in her name.

The legal action was fraught with obstacles for Jacques, a foreigner in Hong Kong, who felt like he was "operating in a foreign, alien territory" because he did not know or understand it properly.

The blanket denial he faced when confronting the issue of racism - even among lawyers - made him feel as if it was crazy to talk about it.

"It was very difficult, they keep trying to ignore what I am saying," he said, in the end hiring solicitors Christopher Gibson QC and Frances Swaine from the UK.

"I knew it would be very expensive, I feared that the other side would destroy me financially."

Jacques feared losing his home, and the impact that it would have on his son. Fortunately, Legal Aid stepped in to partially fund the trial.

"The settlement demonstrated that the Hospital Authority was neither willing nor able to defend their treatment of (Hari, whose) death was entirely unnecessary and utterly avoidable," Jacques said in a recent press release.

"The hospital succeeded in turning what is a commonplace event in the lives of many into a human catastrophe."

‘ My soul mate'

However, Jacque said he only feels tired and has a sense of "terrible sadness" because "it doesn't bring Hari back".

Their love affair began on a jungle trek in Tioman island, and transcended race and geography.

Harinder, a spirited lawyer, worked at a British law firm after moving to the UK to complete her postgraduate studies and to be with Jacques.

"After I left Hong Kong with Ravi, writing was my weapon," said Jacques, the author of the international bestseller When China rules the World .

For two years, Jacques wrote nothing else but about Hari, as he calls her.

In ‘A Season of Paradise', a column for Guardian Online , he wrote: "It felt as if I had known her for years, not a day: I had finally met my soul mate.

"On the face of it, though, we had absolutely nothing in common: she was dark brown, I was white, she was from the equator, I came from cold northern climes, she was from a developing country, I was from the west, she was a Hindu, I was an atheist, she was Indian, I was Caucasian, she was a lawyer, I was a writer, she was 26 and I was 47."

Harinder's father Kamun Singh, a well known lawyer and radical, was the youngest ever member of parliament in Malaysia. He was once detained under the Internal Security Act for leading a march of rubber plantation workers.