Jail for man who took wife to Tsuen Wan beach, then slit her throat

A man who murdered his wife after they had sex on the beach, claiming she was a "cyclops" filled with the "devil and evil", was jailed for life yesterday.

Tahir Nawaz, 38, was convicted unanimously by a seven-member jury in the Court of First Instance of killing his wife, Shazia, 33, with an 18cm knife on August 18 last year at Dragon Beach in Tsuen Wan.

Judge Derek Pang Wai-cheong said the murder had been well-planned because Nawaz deliberately took his wife of 13 years to a remote place. The judge also said the unemployed man showed "no shadow of remorse", as he had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Prosecutor Diane Crebbin said in her opening address that Nawaz believed the day of judgment was coming and the soul of his wife would only "get forgiven" if she was dead.

Shazia was found the next day by an elderly jogger. She was lying face down in her underwear by the water's edge on the beach near Castle Peak Road. Her throat had been slit, which the judge said had resulted in near-decapitation.

Police and emergency services officers pronounced her dead at the scene.

The court previously heard that Nawaz, after having sex with his wife, at first tried to strangle her with a mobile-phone charger cord - which broke - and then his hands. He then resorted to cutting her neck with a knife, which police divers later found in the sea.

"The deceased was found to have severe and deep cuts to the throat on the front of her neck, and those cuts extended from ear to ear almost to the back of her neck," the prosecution counsel had earlier told the court.

The court had heard that Nawaz said his wife had agreed to let him kill her. But Pang said there was no evidence that she had been willing to sacrifice her life.

After killing his wife, Nawaz left his shirt and shoes on the beach and injured his right foot on rocks. A trail of bloodstains, which matched his DNA, was discovered on a concrete footpath along the beach and continuing towards Castle Peak Road.

Two witnesses previously testified to seeing a South Asian man, wearing only his trousers, walking barefoot along that road at 10.30pm on August 18 last year.

The couple were married in Pakistan in 1998 and had three sons. The defendant's family is seeking refugee status in Hong Kong.

The court heard Nawaz also married a second woman before the murder - an Indonesian with whom he had a baby girl in Hong Kong.