PETALING JAYA: A former university professor from Malaysia purchased two yoga balls which were later filled with deadly gas for his home in Hong Kong to exterminate shrews, a court heard in a trial of the alleged murder of his wife and daughter.
Anaesthesiologist Khaw Kim Sun, 60, told the Hong Kong High Court on Wednesday (Dec 11) that he brought the surplus carbon monoxide from his laboratory to his home after various pest control attempts failed, The Star reported, citing multiple reports.
Khaw, representing himself in the trial, denies filling an inflatable yoga ball with the carbon monoxide from the laboratory and placed it in his family’s Mini Cooper car to murder his wife Wong Siew Fing, 47, and second daughter, Lily Khaw Li Ling, 16.
Their deaths took place on May 22, 2015.
Following the murder probe, Khaw was “struck off”, as quoted, from Hong Kong and British medical registers in 2020 for allegedly using his specialist knowledge to carry out the murders.
Khaw asserted in court that his whereabouts on the day of their deaths and scientific findings would find him not guilty of the crime.
During the retrial on Wednesday, the prosecution said on the day of the incident, Khaw’s wife and daughter were leaving home using the Mini Cooper and the car was discovered near the Sai O terminal in Ma On Shan around 1.6km from their residence.
The retrial is expected to last 30 days.
Months later after their bodies were found, the police discovered a deflated exercise ball that was initially pumped with carbon monoxide, in the car. The carbon monoxide was found in the mother and daughter’s autopsies.
The prosecution speculated that Khaw, being an anaesthesiologist would have known the properties of the gas, was said to have committed the perfect crime.
In the initial trial, the court noted that Khaw was involved in an extramarital affair with a woman who tutored the Chinese language to his children and his oldest daughter testified that she had knowledge of the affair.
As for the allegations regarding the carbon monoxide substance, Khaw said he filled the yoga balls with the gas in the university he was employed at and brought it home to get rid of the rats in their house.
The Malaysian national in Hong Kong rejected the prosecution’s claims that the animal experiment carried out was a “ruse”, as quoted to obtain the carbon monoxide that killed his wife and second daughter nine years ago.
Khaw made the comments at the High Court last Friday following the dismissal of his legal counsel and choosing to defend himself in the remainder of the murder trial.
“Dr Khaw thinks that the best interest lies in him representing himself.
“He’s given a lot of thought to that, and I have therefore given permission to his legal team to withdraw from the case,” High Court Deputy Judge Brian Keith was quoted as saying to the jury.
On top of that, a judgement released on Nov 21 showed five top appeal court judges unanimously ruled in favour of Khaw and his legal team who questioned the trial judge’s directing of the jury.
It was concluded by the five judges that the trial judge, Judianna Barnes, could have “steered the jury towards an impermissible line of reasoning”, as quoted, rejecting the possibility of the defendant’s daughter using the gas to kill insects.
In the 2018 trial, Khaw was accused by the prosecution of placing the ball in the Mini belonging to his wife with the knowledge that she would be driving the car but prosecutors “contended’, as quoted, that he did not intend to kill his daughter who was not in school at the time.
When police discovered the ball, partially deflated in the car boot in November 2015, they noticed that the stopper was missing.
Afterwards into the probe, a yoga ball stopper was discovered in a drawer belonging to Khaw’s study in 2016, prompting the prosecution to suggest to a trial jury in 2018 that the stopper could be from the ball in the car.
The 21-day trial resulted in the jury, in September 2018, finding the defendant guilty of two counts of murder with High Court Barnes sentencing him to life imprisonment for each count.
However in November 21 the appeal court judges argued that there was no evidence linking the stopper found in the drawer with the yoga ball in the Mini Cooper, along with many other yoga balls found in the family’s home.
It was found that the judge’s misdirection allowed the jury to ignore the possibility that the stopper was misplaced or mistakenly taken away by police officers which could eliminate the youngest daughter being the one to have placed the ball in the car, according to the appeal court judges.
Khaw’s lawyers, in their appeal, offered an alternative possibility that the second victim Lily placed the ball in the car to ward off insects she was afraid of.
Besides that, recorded interviews also showed that Khaw suggesting Lily could have committed suicide with the carbon monoxide, claiming that possessed the knowledge of the ball’s contents.
Khaw also informed investigators that the carbon monoxide purchased was going to be used for exterminating rats in his house after previous experiments on rabbits, which prosecutors also contended as “bogus”, as quoted.
The court also heard that he was in a relationship with a former student, who is currently taking care of his three other children.
Previously, Khaw reportedly had an earlier appeal thrown out by an appeal court in 2022 but Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal in June 2023 approved his application of appeal over “grave injustice”, as quoted, which involved the trial judge’s misdirection.
