By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Andrea Barr's FB profile photo |
A Pakistani security guard
accused of killing his Austrian-Filipina girlfriend Andrea Bayr in March last
year, pleaded not guilty to murder on Jan 3 in Eastern Court.
Safdar Husnain, 28, made his
plea before magistrate Jason Wan, who immediately ordered the case committed to
the High Court for trial.
Husnain was remanded in jail.
No bail was set as the charge is murder, a non-bailable offense.
The defendant, a tall and burly
man who worked as a night-shift guard at a footbridge construction site
in Tuen Mun, was subdued and arrested by police at
dawn on March 29 while he was still allegedly battering Bayr, then 25, with an
electric drill.
Husnain’s Pakistani friend who witnessed the incident called
the police after the defendant allegedly attacked the victim during a fight
over Bayr’s plan to break up with him.
Local media reports quoting
police said Husnain was enraged when Bayr, a jobless divorcee, went to him
to say she was moving in with a Caucasian
boyfriend.
The reports said Bayr, who had been a waitress and manager
of restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai, was born in Hong Kong to an
Austrian father and a Filipino-French mother.
The Consulate could not confirm the victim’s nationality,
saying it did not have records of her or her mother, although she was a friend to
many Filipino residents in Hong Kong’s, especially those working in the nightclub
circuit.
