Malaysian professor whose wife, daughter suffocated by gas-filled yoga ball in Hong Kong wins final appeal against murder convictions
- Court orders retrial of case concerning death of Khaw Kim Sun’s wife and daughter from carbon monoxide poisoning
- Panel of top arbiters argues judge in 2018 trial offered up erroneous line of reasoning over absence of stopper in car where deadly yoga ball was placed
Hong Kong’s top court has quashed the murder convictions of a Malaysian professor whose wife and daughter were poisoned by a gas-filled yoga ball in their car 8½ years ago.
The Court of Final Appeal on Tuesday awarded Khaw Kim Sun another chance to clear his name by ordering a retrial over what prosecutors had argued was a meticulous murder plan by the anaesthesiologist.
The five presiding arbiters unanimously quashed Khaw’s convictions after finding the trial judge at the time had proposed an erroneous line of reasoning to the jury when she discounted the possibility that the appellant’s daughter had accidentally killed herself and her mother.
Khaw’s defence lawyer congratulated his client on Tuesday when the news was announced, but the appellant, who has been incarcerated for more than six years, did not visibly react to the court’s decision.
Khaw, now aged 59, was found guilty of two counts of murder over the deaths of his wife Wong Siew Fing, 47, and their second child Lily Khaw Li Ling, 16, on May 22, 2015.
