H.K. university dropout given 15 years in jail in Taiwan for murder

[TIEPILOT]

H.K. university dropout given 15 years in jail in Taiwan for murder

2016/02/18 13:24:09

Taipei, Feb. 18 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court overturned Thursday a lower court ruling in which a university dropout from Hong Kong was sentenced to life in jail in Taiwan last year after admitting the murder of his landlord in 2014, and gave him 15 years in prison on the grounds he had reached a private settlement with the other party.

Mak Ka-ki, 23, had been detained since December 2014 for killing his 70-year-old landlord with a dumbbell and a knife during an argument over rent arrears in an apartment block near the Chinese Culture University campus where he studied.

Mak came to Taiwan and enrolled in the department of Urban Affairs and Environmental Planning in 2009 but was expelled in 2013.

In May 2013, he rented a suite near the university but failed to pay the annual rent of NT$100,000 (US$3,006).

The rent was later adjusted to NT$10,000 per month, but Mak still often failed to pay.

The Taiwan Shilin District Court found that Mak had hit the landlord's head with a dumbbell and stabbed him in the neck and chest with a fruit knife on Dec. 2, 2014 following the argument over rent arrears.

After an appeal, the Taiwan High Court overruled the life sentence against Mak and instead sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

According to the High Court, it handed down the ruling based on the consideration that Mak's parents and the family of the victim had reached an agreement in which Mak's family agreed to pay the victim's family a total of NT$5 million to settle the case, with only NT$185,000 having yet to be paid to meet the total amount.

The case can still be appealed.

(By Liu Shih-yi and Evelyn Kao)