A Hong Kong man who claimed to be the reincarnation of a late Thai king has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the gruesome murder of an elderly man four years ago.
The High Court on Wednesday sentenced 35-year-old Mang Yat-lam to mandatory life in prison after a seven-member jury unanimously rejected his claim that he had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the random attack.
Mang, who was unemployed, told the court he did not know his victim, 70-year-old Cheung Kwok-yim, but said he had heard a male voice ordering him to kill the man after seeing him smoking at Hoi Chu Road Playground in Tuen Mun on August 5, 2021.
The trial heard that Mang, who lived in a public housing estate several blocks away, struck Cheung’s head and neck from behind with an axe, almost decapitating him after he fell to the ground.
Mang later attempted to take his own life in a nearby public toilet before police found him wandering aimlessly near the scene.
After his arrest, Mang made a series of incoherent claims that he was an alien born in Sirius and had been a Chinese emperor in previous life cycles. He also claimed to have been assassinated in 1946 when he was Ananda Mahidol, also known as King Rama VIII of Siam.
He insisted he had committed the murder in retaliation for being unable to be reborn as the next Thai king.
