Hong Kong prosecutors yesterday dropped manslaughter charges against tour guides Liu Yang and Ricky Woo, whose tussle with mainland tourist Miao Chunqi led to his death last October, the SCMP reports.
Liu, 32, and Woo, 44, are no longer accused of unlawful killing by prosecutors after a forensic pathologist confirmed that Miao had died of a heart attack. They were, however, charged with a combined six charges of common assault.
Another tour guide implicated in the case, 32-year-old Deng Haiyan, was absent in court. A warrant for her arrest was issued.
Liu, who pleaded guilty to four counts of common assault, admitted to pushing and kicking Miao, grabbing his neck, and assaulting his friend Zhang Lixia. The Shenzhen tour guide is due to be sentenced on Friday.
Woo denied two counts of common assault, and will attend a pre-trial hearing at the end of March.
The fight, which led to Miao’s death, took place outside the D2 jewellery shop in Hung Hom after Miao tried to intervene in an argument between female tourist Zhang Lixia and tour guide Deng. At the time, a police source said the dispute broke out because Zhang did not want to purchase anything from the shop.
Miao was hospitalised after he was beaten unconscious by a reported total of four different men. The 54-year-old died in Queen Elizabeth hospital one day later.
During mitigation, Liu’s barrister Oliver Davies asked why it had taken so long for prosecution to drop the manslaughter charges, despite the report about Miao’s heart condition apparently being made available a few days after his death.
A representative for the Department of Justice denied the delay, saying that the department had not received the postmortem examination report until Dec. 30.
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