HKU ex-Prof Cheung Kie-chung jailed 7y4m in retrial after pleading guilty to killing his wife
發佈日期: 2025-11-04 20:31
TVB News
Former University of Hong Kong associate professor of mechanical engineering Cheung Kie-chung has had his murder conviction and life-imprisonment sentence overturned on appeal.
At his retrial this morning, he was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter which resulted in his wife's death.
In August 2018, Cheung Kie-chung -- then the warden of HKU's Wei Lun Hall -- reported to police that his wife, Tina Chan, was missing.
Police later raided Cheung's office and discovered Tina Chan's body inside a suitcase sealed in a wooden crate and that Cheung had strangled his wife with an electrical wire.
Cheung was charged with murder that same year.
While he expressed willingness during the trial to plead guilty to manslaughter, the plea was rejected.
According to the case, on the night of the incident the defendant was kicked off the bed by his wife during a domestic argument.
He reached under the bed to pick up slippers, felt an electrical wire, and then committed the killing.
The defence cited a psychologist's report stating Cheung had often been humiliated by his wife in front of others, amounting to emotional abuse.
Suffering from depression at the time, Cheung was said to have his rational judgment affected under extreme stress.
The jury found him guilty of murder by a majority, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Cheung successfully appealed last year.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge improperly excluded psychological expert evidence when directing the jury on diminished responsibility, and ordered a retrial.
At the High Court, Cheung, now 61, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and the prosecution accepted the plea.
He was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison.
The court revealed that Cheung has already been remanded for seven years and two months.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to preventing the lawful burial of a body and was sentenced to 28 months' imprisonment, to be served concurrently.
