Wife killer’s appeal against life imprisonment rejected

Five judges from the Court of Final Appeal unanimously rejected the appeal of a man convicted of choking his wife to death in 2015, upholding his life imprisonment sentence on Tuesday.

The man, Li Cheung-choi, who was 47 years old at the time of the incident, filed an appeal last year after being found guilty of choking his wife with a belt in a taxi.

Li argued that the court should consider his “diminished responsibility” and claimed to have told a psychiatrist outside the court that he experienced hallucinations and delusions during the incident after taking drugs a few days before. 

The defendant borrowed money after his wife incurred a HK$2 million debt and was harassed by the creditor, causing him significant stress, according to a psychologist from the Siu Lam Psychiatric Treatment Center, where Li was detained from October 2015 to March 2016.

However, the judges said yesterday (Jan 7) that out-of-court statements made by the psychiatrist were not contemporaneous accounts of Li’s current health or feelings and thus held no independent evidential value as state-of-mind evidence.

Furthermore, a psychologist determined that the defendant did not suffer from mental illness and experience hallucinations.

The judges noted that the main thrust of his evidence was the unlikelihood of drug-induced intoxication lasting two to three days and the potential for psychosis to resolve quickly, going undetected by doctors.