A mainland civil servant accused of murdering his ex-wife by pushing her off a floating casino told police he had accidentally killed her while trying to stop her from committing suicide before pushing the body off the deck to fulfil her wish for a sea burial, a court heard yesterday.
Wang Weilie, 49, a policy research officer at the Guangzhou municipal committee, pleaded not guilty in the Court of First Instance to murdering Yang Wenjuan on September 24 last year.
Prosecutor Patrick Loftus said Wang told police that he threw Yang's body into the sea after she died from a fatal blow to her head, suffered during a struggle as he stopped her from killing herself.
But Loftus said an autopsy showed that the woman died of drowning and the blow to her head was not life-threatening, while Yang's sister had described the victim as a cheerful and optimistic person who had a lot of friends.
The court heard that Wang had wanted to plead guilty to manslaughter, but this was not accepted by the prosecution.
Loftus said Wang and the victim arrived in Hong Kong from Guangzhou on September 23 last year and boarded the Macau Success floating casino that night. At about 7am the next day, a female passenger, Liu Ying, who was exercising on deck, saw Wang push his wife's head backwards towards the railings.