Life for 'Hello Kitty' Killers

H O N G  K O N G, Dec. 6 -- A court sentenced three HongKong men to life in prison today for torturing a youngmother, cutting up her body and stuffing her skull into a HelloKitty doll in one of the most brutal killings in thisterritory.

Chan Man-lok, 34, Leung Shing-cho, 27, and Leung Wai-lun,21, were found guilty of manslaughter and unlawful imprisonmentby a jury in November after a six-week trial.

They stood expressionless in dark suits as the judge readout the sentence. There will be no review for parole for 20years.

Remorseless Trio

“Never throughout the years in Hong Kong has a court heardsuch cruelty, depravity, callousness, brutality, violence andviciousness, perpetrated by a human being, or human beings, onanother human being,” said Justice Peter Nguyen.

“Even an animal would not have been maltreated in the sameway as that received by the deceased.”

Psychiatric reports described the three, members of asecret triad gang society, as “remorseless.”

The jury accepted that the men did not kill 23-year-old FanMan-yee with intent, which would have meant a mandatory lifesentence, but it determined she died as a result of theirabuse.

The exact cause and date of Fan’s death is not known asonly her skull, one tooth and her internal organs, which werefound in a refrigerator in the flat where she was killed, wererecovered.

Shocking Crime

The gruesome crime shocked Hong Kong. The macabreinvolvement of the mouthless Hello Kitty — a cartoon characterwell adored in Hong Kong — kept the public and the local pressriveted.

Nguyen described the trio as having “psychopathictendencies” and as “likely to remain a danger to others” as hemeted out the maximum penalty for manslaughter.

The men kidnapped Fan in March last year and tortured herfor a month in a flat in Tsim Sha Tsui because of a disputed“debt” of HK$20,000 (US$2,560).

The crime came to light when the 14-year-old girlfriend ofone of the men informed on them after she suffered nightmaresfrom witnessing, and partaking, in some of the torturesessions.