Suicide finding for 'loner' who stabbed cop

Jane Cheung

A merchandizer who stabbed a constable in the back in Causeway Bay last July 1 was ruled to have committed suicide by a five-member jury in a coroner's court yesterday.

Three female and two male jurors reached, after an hour, the unanimous verdict that 50-year-old Leung Kin-fai - who worked at beverage company Vitasoy - took his own life.

That came after coroner David Ko Wai-hung directed them to choose between a suicide ruling and an open verdict, which means there was insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion.

None of Leung's relatives or their representatives were present for the ruling.

Ko ordered Leung's personal belongings to be returned to his elder brother, excluding the knife and eight USB sticks that contained his suicide notes.

Constable So King-cho said he was outside Sogo department store at

10.05 pm that day when he felt the approach of a dark presence.

He ended up with a 14-centimeter knife injury on a shoulder and two cuts on his waist, and was hospitalized for 19 days. He has yet to return to frontline duty.

Surveillance cameras showed Leung stabbed himself twice , with a 9.5-centimeter plunge piercing his heart.

Leung said in one of the USB sticks he "can seemingly see the end of the life."

He further wrote: "Toward the end of your life, you may ask yourself: 'Have you done anything that you're proud of? Has the world become better or worse because of you? Was it freer or not?"