16 years’ jail for suicidal mainland Chinese student who tried to kill 4 women in Hong Kong
- High Court judge Madam Justice Esther Toh lambasts Liu Yueteng, 26, for ‘cowardly’ acts
- Liu had mistakenly thought he could be extradited back to mainland to face the death penalty
A suicidal mainland Chinese student who attempted to kill four women in Hong Kong so he could get the death penalty has been sentenced to 16 years in jail, with a judge decrying the acts as “cowardly”.
High Court judge Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping on Wednesday slammed Liu Yueteng, 26, for taking his frustration out on others with violence after being too afraid to end his own life, posing a danger to himself and the rest of society.
Liu had pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder of four random women when they were out for a brisk walk at an area known as “Garden Hill” in Sham Shui Po on October 11, 2019.
“This is an utterly cowardly and unprovoked attack on the four ladies who were just doing their exercise,” Toh told Liu, who kept his head down the whole time during the sentencing.
Student admits he tried to kill 4 women in Hong Kong to get death sentence
She noted the “heartbreaking” mitigation letters from Liu’s parents, who painted him as a victim of bullying in his childhood, while acknowledging his diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
“But these offences are much too serious. Society has to be protected,” Toh said, citing multiple victims and the premeditated nature of the crime.
Hong Kong abolished capital punishment in 1993. But the court heard Liu committed the knife attack in the city because he believed he could make a confession on the mainland afterward and be subsequently sanctioned to death by central authorities.
But he returned to the city, where he was intercepted at the border, after being told by mainland authorities that they could not handle the case.
According to a psychiatrist’s report sought by the court, Liu, a former year four student at Henan University of Technology, was bullied for a problem he had with his sphincter muscle when he was in primary school.
He began to develop suicidal thoughts in Form Three in secondary school and had tried to kill himself several times, his father wrote in his mitigation letter for Liu.
For the first time on Wednesday, the court was told how Liu’s personal frustration turned into a grudge against others.
According to what he revealed to the psychiatrist, he spent some enjoyable time in Hong Kong visiting Disneyland and Victoria Harbour with an escort he met in Shenzhen, days before the attack.
He reached out to another escort in the city out of loneliness after the first one left, but he had a dispute with the woman, who took a mobile phone Liu gave her back to the mainland.
Liu told the psychiatrist he was “taken over” again by suicidal thoughts.
Lacking the courage to kill himself, “he was preoccupied with harming others”, according to Toh, who cited the psychiatrist’s report.
Hong Kong’s sad history of suicide: jumping, drowning, poisoning
“The defendant was too cowardly to kill himself and therefore he killed others so that the government could then kill him,” Toh said, letting out a sigh mid-sentence.
The defendant said an online search had led him to believe he could be extradited back to the mainland after committing the crime, although that year, the city was gripped by months of protests sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill. That legislation would have allowed for the transfer of fugitives to other jurisdictions with which the city lacked such an agreement, including mainland China.
The court previously heard Liu first approached Lam King-king, 57, on the morning of the attack and stabbed her in the neck and back with a fruit knife.
The three other women by Lam’s side fled, but Liu gave chase, stabbing and slashing the rest of them before fleeing by taxi.
“He could have stopped but instead he chased after the three and stabbed them,” Toh said, calling the move an aggravating factor.
