Woman accused of murdering her children and leaving their bodies in luggage faces New Zealand trial
Wellington, New Zealand (AP) – New Zealand For a woman accused on Monday Kill two children And to leave their bodies in suitcases for years before they are discovered.
Hakyung Lee is accused of killing 8 -year -old Minu Jo and Yuna Jo in June 2018. Returned from South Korea confront the accusations he refused.
Children’s ruins were found in a luggage in a abandoned storage unit in Auckland in August 2022. Lee, a new Zealand citizen, traveled to South Korea and changed his name shortly after it was believed to have been killed in 2018.
He was born in South Korea and had previously left with Ji Eun Lee.
On Monday, Lee was chosen a jury for the hearing of the Supreme Court in Auckland, which was expected to last four weeks. Prosecutors said they would summarize their cases on Tuesday and call 40 witnesses.
New Zealand news organizations reported that Lee represented him, but if necessary, two lawyers are waiting to help him. He did not speak during the hearing on Monday, and when he was asked how he was begging the charges, he shook his head instead of responding through a interpreter.
The presidential Justice Geoffrey Venning did not have guilty satisfaction.
The cause of death is unknown. Court documents, according to the New Zealand Radio, may have been killed by prescribed sleeping drugs prescribed to Lee and detected in their bodies by judicial researchers, but another cause of death was not ignored, he said.
According to Rnz, Lee’s husband died in 2017 after a deteriorating period of health. Justice Vayan said to the jury on Monday that Lee would be asked to take into account the issue of mental health during the alleged murders.
Venning said that the hearing would be sad to Lee and that he gave permission to monitor the trial from another room at the courthouse.
When Lee faced financial difficulties in 2022, Children’s remains were discovered after stopping paying rent for the Auckland storage unit. The content of the cabinet was auctioned online and the buyers found the bodies inside.
Lee, 40 years old, was arrested in South Korea in September 2022 and was returned two months later. South Korean officials, then, New Zealand to return to the trial after a formal request after a written approval, he said.
South Korean Ministry of Justice said that New Zealand has provided “important evidence olmayan not specified in the case.
