DEPTFORD: Killer who beheaded graduate has sentence reduced (From News Shopper)

DEPTFORD: Killer who beheaded graduate has sentence reduced

4:47pm Thursday 3rd December 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(2)

A KILLER who cut the head off a student when she was still alive and dumped her body in the Thames has had his sentence slashed on appeal today (Dec 3).

But Lon Trach Gian, aged 27, and his lover, Noor Azura Mohd-Yussof, aged 24, both of Knoyle Street, Deptford, failed at the Court of Appeal in a challenge against their murder convictions.

Their lawyers argued that, far from being slain, 23-year-old victim Xing Xing Xie had died of a cocaine overdose after a 36-hour sex and drugs bender.

However, Lord Justice Moses rejected claims that the trial judge should not have allowed the case to go before the jury because of insufficient evidence.

The Court of Appeal judges also dismissed suggestions that the Old Bailey jury had been misdirected.

Allowing Gian's appeal against his 22-year minimum jail term, however, Lord Moses cut it to 19 years, saying he got too long compared to Yussof, who received a 15-year minimum term.

The court heard Miss Xie was killed in April 2007 after being stabbed in the neck and having her head cut off.

Her hands were also removed, and bags containing parts of her body were dumped in various docks at Rotherhithe.

Her torso was discovered two days after she died, her head seven weeks later.

It was the prosecution's case that Miss Xie had been killed because Mohd-Yussof had flown into a jealous rage after finding out she had been partying with Gian, as well as others.

After the killing, the couple fled to the West Midlands, staying at a hotel in Walsall for more than a month before renting a flat in Birmingham.

At the Court of Appeal, judges were told that Miss Xie might have died from cocaine poisoning, and there was no forensic evidence to suggest that she had been killed at Knoyle Street in Deptford.

However, Lord Moses said the jury were rightly left to decide how Miss Xie died, adding that there was significant circumstantial evidence which suggested that she had been killed at Knoyle Street, including items found with her body which had come from the house.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(2)