Hong Kong court orders retrial of man charged with murdering taxi driver after jury fails to reach majority verdict

A Hong Kong court has ordered a retrial of a man accused of murdering a taxi driver in 2021 after the jury failed to reach a majority verdict.

Matthew Choi, 36, had pleaded not guilty to one count of murder. He was arrested on Lamma Island in October 2021 after a night-shift taxi driver was stabbed to death.

After a 16-hour deliberation, the seven-member jury failed to reach a majority verdict on whether Choi should be convicted of murder, the High Court heard on Wednesday.

Judge Esther Toh discharged the jury and directed a retrial, Ming Pao reported.

Hong Kong’s High Court started hearing the case on July 15, with Wednesday marking the 23rd day of the trial.

While the prosecution argued that the murder was planned, the defence said Choi felt his mind was being controlled when he assaulted the taxi driver. The defendant thought he was being targeted by the government, the defence said.

Choi was arrested on Lamma Island in October 2021 after a two-day citywide manhunt. He was suspected of stabbing a 48-year-old taxi driver in Sai Ying Pun at around 5am on October 12, 2021.

The driver, Wai Kim-hung, was certified dead at Queen Mary Hospital at 6.17am.

According to the prosecution, Wai was driving along Eastern Street in Sai Ying Pun when the defendant hailed the taxi outside WE Hotel.

After boarding the vehicle, the defendant stabbed the victim in the neck with a knife and fled the scene on foot within a minute.

Following the murder, Choi discarded some of his belongings nearby, returned to his residence to wash his clothes, and then went to Lamma Island, the prosecution told the court.

The prosecution argued during the trial that the defendant was clear-headed about what he was doing when he assaulted the taxi driver as he had checked in WE Hotel one day prior to the incident. He changed his clothes before hailing the taxi, bringing a towel to clean himself up after the murder, Ming Pao reported.

The defence summoned a psychiatrist from Castle Peak Hospital, who said Choi began to show symptoms of mental illness at the age of 20, suffering from delusions and believing that he had become a target of artificial intelligence (AI), Sing Tao Daily reported.

After coming to Hong Kong from South Africa at the age of 26, he believed he was being mistreated by the Hong Kong government.

The psychiatrist said the defendant had no memory of killing anyone and did not mention to her the idea of killing others.

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Irene Chan is a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press and has an interest in covering political and social change. She previously worked at Initium Media as chief editor for Hong Kong news and was a community organiser at the Society for Community Organisation serving the underprivileged. She has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Fudan University and a master’s degree in social work from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Irene is the recipient of two Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) awards and three honourable mentions for her investigative, feature and video reporting. She also received a Human Rights Press Award for multimedia reporting and an honourable mention for feature writing.