Details emerge of Chinese national Cui Yajie’s grisly death as her Singaporean lover Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock stands trial
- Khoo admits killing Cui, but should not be found guilty of her murder because he was provoked into a ‘sudden fight’, according to his lawyer
- The body of Cui, an engineer from Tianjin, was never recovered after being burned in a secluded lane over a period of three days
A Singaporean man accused of strangling his 31-year-old Chinese girlfriend to death and burning her body has claimed he was not in control of his actions at the time and did not intend to murder her.
Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock is on trial at Singapore’s High Court after pleading not guilty to the murder of Cui Yajie, an engineer from Tianjin, on July 12, 2016.
But government prosecutors argue that the 50-year-old laundry manager murdered Cui to silence her after she threatened to expose him for cheating money out of her and several other women.
On Wednesday, the second day of the trial, the government psychiatrist who had interviewed Khoo after his arrest, Dr Kenneth Koh, said he could not establish the extent of the pair’s relationship.
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But based on his assessment, he said he did not think that Khoo had “intermittent explosive disorder” – which is characterised by sudden outbursts of unwarranted anger and violence – as had been stated in a previous report by a private psychiatrist.