A Pakistani man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an Indonesian maid in Hong Kong three years ago.
A jury handed down a unanimous verdict in Hong Kong’s High Court on Thursday after just 20 minutes of discussion.
Wahaj Fyaz, 32, was found guilty of killing Wiji Astutik Supardi, a 37-year-old Indonesian woman, in June 2015. The victim came to Hong Kong as a domestic worker and was permitted to remain after claiming that she had endured torture.
Fyaz and Wiji were believed to be lovers and lived in a partitioned condo on a rooftop of a tenement block in Mong Kok. The pair were reported to use drugs and got into a fight on the day of the murder.
Fyaz was said to have wrapped Wiji’s bloated body in a mattress and dumped it in a street in Mong Kok early in the morning nearly three years ago. A shop owner attempted to move the mattress and one of the victim’s hands allegedly slipped out of the bedspread covering her body – revealing the murder, according to the Metro Daily and Orient Daily.
A subsequent autopsy found the victim had sustained multiple injuries and the Pakistani admitted that he had slapped, punched and kicked his girlfriend.
Fyaz was hunted down three days after the murder, found eventually in a female bathroom on a public beach in Tuen Mun.
He was also given three and a half years’ jail for preventing the lawful burial of Wiji’s body. The court ordered that he serve the second term concurrently.