Court of Appeal reduces murder conviction of former HKU professor to manslaughter

Former University of Hong Kong (HKU) professor Cheung Kie-chung was resentenced to seven years and four months in prison with the conviction of manslaughter on Tuesday in the Court of Appeal, after being convicted of murdering his wife in 2018. 

The case indicated that Cheung was suffering from depression at the time of the incident, which severely impaired his rational judgment and self-control. Prosecutors accepted his mental condition after Cheung appealed last year, leading to the overturning of his conviction and a retrial.

​During the initial trial, the defense called expert witness Sammy Cheng Kin-Wing, a clinical psychologist, who testified that extreme stress can affect rational judgment. 

However, the original judge instructed the jury to disregard the psychologist's testimony, which the appeal court later ruled could have misled the jury in 2024.

Accepting Cheung's guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter, the Court of Appeal on Tuesday stated that his mental condition at the time of the offense significantly diminished his culpability for the crime. Cheung is then sentenced to seven years and four months in prison.

He admitted to strangling his wife at their residence at HKU and hiding her body in a wooden box in 2018

​He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment after conviction of murdering and preventing lawful burial following the murder.