A Hong Kong doctor killed his wife and daughter by booby-trapping their car with a yoga ball filled with poisonous gas, a court has heard.
Malaysian-born anaesthesiologist Khaw Kim-sun, 53, allegedly planted the rigged inflatable in the boot of a yellow Mini Cooper driven by his wife, Wong Siew-fung, on 22 May 2015. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder.
Wong and the couple’s 16-year-old daughter, Khaw Li-ling, were later discovered unconscious in the parked car. They were taken to the same hospital where Khaw worked, but were declared dead on arrival.
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A postmortem gave the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning, and when the car showed no sign of any manufacturing defects, detectives decided to take a closer look at a deflated yoga ball.
Prosecutors argue that Khaw had been having an affair with a student and hatched the elaborate murder plot when Wong refused to agree to a divorce.
The jury at Hong Kong High Court heard that the same student allegedly helped him arrange a fake research project in order to obtain the necessary quantities of high-purity carbon monoxide.
When colleagues at Chinese University spotted him filling two inflatable yoga balls with the poisonous gas, Khaw reportedly said he “wanted to test its purity and also told them he was experimenting with the effects of the gas on rabbits”, the South China Morning Post reports.
Khaw, would later tell police that he intended to use the poisonous contraption to deal with a rat infestation, but a domestic worker employed at the family home said there was no issue with rodents.
He also suggested that his daughter might have intentionally committed suicide, a claim that prosecutor Andrew Bruce SC called “a lame lie”, although he accepted that Khaw had probably intended the trap for his wife only.
Khaw told police that he “had urged his younger daughter to stay at home and finish her homework on the day of the deaths”, Hong Kong Free Press reports.
The trial continues.
