Malaysian ex-university professor found guilty of Hong Kong yoga ball murder

A former university professor in Hong Kong accused of murdering his family with a yoga ball filled with lethal gas has been found guilty of killing his wife and daughter, after failing to clear his name in a retrial.

After less than four hours of deliberation, a High Court jury on Tuesday unanimously found Malaysian anaesthesiologist Khaw Kim Sun guilty of causing the deaths of his wife, Wong Siew Fing, 47, and their second child, Lily Khaw Li Ling, 16.

The two died of carbon monoxide poisoning after a leaky inflatable yoga ball filled with a lethal amount of the gas was placed in the boot of Khaw’s Mini Cooper car.

Khaw, 60, was convicted of two counts of murder in the 2018 trial, but fought to clear his name while serving a life sentence by lodging an appeal.

In 2023, the Court of Final Appeal quashed his conviction after ruling that the trial judge had misdirected the jury. The case was sent back to the High Court for retrial, which began in November last year.

Khaw decided to represent himself the second time around, firing his legal representatives shortly after the start of the retrial.

He also took the witness box to tell the seven-member jury that he had bought carbon monoxide for an experiment in his lab, in which oxygen was used to resuscitate rabbits poisoned with the lethal gas.