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| Andrea Bayr was killed by Husnain with an electric drill |
By Vir B. Lumicao
A Pakistani serving a life sentence for the gruesome murder
of his 25-year-old Austrian-Filipino girlfriend at a Tuen Mun construction site
three years ago is seeking leave from the High Court for a judicial review of
his conviction.
Safdar Husnain, 29, appeared before three Court of Appeal
judges on May 31 and said the judge in last year’s trial of his case did not
consider an agreement between the defense and prosecution to downgrade the
charge to manslaughter.
Trial Judge Kevin Zervos allowed Husnain to be tried for
murder. After trial, the jury, voting 6-1, found him guilty of killing Bayr, a
bar waitress and part-time model, at dawn on Mar 29, 2016.
A Pakistani friend of Husnain testified in court that he saw
Husnain hitting the victim with an electric drill. The witness said he tried to
stop Husnain but failed, so he ran outside the site and called the police.
Husnain’s private lawyer, David Boyton, said the trial judge
did not consider a letter from a psychiatrist stating that the defendant was
suffering from a narcotics-induced psychosis.
Boyton told the panel composed of Justices Andrew Macrae,
Ian McWalters and Derek Pang that the defense submitted the letter to the judge
during the trial in mid-January last year.
Before that, the defense had already discussed with the
prosecution the possibility of amending
the murder charge to manslaughter after a report by another psychiatrist in the
pretrial stage indicated the defendant’s mental state was affected by his
drug-taking.
After hearing the submissions, Macrae said the panel would
like to know why the trial judge proceeded with the murder trial, and would
decide on the application after reviewing the transcript of the proceedings.
He adjourned the hearing to an unspecified date.
Husnain was a night-shift security guard in a footbridge construction
site in Tuen Mun while Bayr, who had a young daughter with her Filipino former
husband, was a waitress and manager of restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong and Wan
Chai.
Bayr was born in Hong Kong to a Filipina mother and Austrian
father.
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