A man who stabbed, gutted and beheaded his seat mate on a Greyhound bus has pleaded not guilty and will present psychiatric evidence in his defence, a court has heard in the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Vince Weiguang Li, 40, spoke in a loud, clear voice as he pleaded "not guilty" to the second-degree murder charge in a court in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
The Chinese immigrant is accused of killing Tim McLean, a 22-year-old carnival worker who was murdered on the bus in western Canada in what the other passengers described as a random, horrific attack on July 30 last year.
Li's lawyers are not disputing that he killed McLean, but they will argue Li was mentally ill and not criminally responsible.
A psychiatrist told the court Li is schizophrenic and believed God told him to do it.
McLean had been asleep, his cheek pressed against the bus window, when his assailant struck suddenly near dusk, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest with a "big Rambo knife," according to witnesses.
The other 34 passengers and the driver were jolted by "blood-curdling screams" and fled, bracing the door on their way out to trap Li inside the bus.
Li then sawed off McLean's head with the knife, pocketed the victim's nose, lips and an ear, and taunted police and bystanders with the severed head, prosecutors said.
Police observed him eating pieces of his victim when they surrounded the bus on a desolate highway about 90 kilometres west of Winnipeg soon after the attack.
He was subdued after a three-hour standoff.
In court on Tuesday, Li reportedly appeared thinner than after his arrest eight months ago as he stood to enter his plea.
Friends and family of the victim wept as Li pleaded not guilty, said public broadcaster CBC.
Li appeared in court in a grey suit with an off-white collared shirt and running shoes without laces.
He sat surrounded by security guards who separated him from dozens of McLean's friends and family sitting in the courtroom.
Three dozen passengers were aboard the bus as it travelled at night along a desolate stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway from Edmonton to Winnipeg.
Witnesses said Li attacked McLean unprovoked, stabbing him dozens of times.
The prosecution and defence agreed on a joint statement of facts, Manitoba courts spokeswoman Aimee Fortier said.
The statement of facts read in court said Li attacked Tim McLean "for no apparent reason" and McLean fought to escape before he died.
As horrified passengers fled the bus, Li severed McLean's head and displayed it to some of the passengers outside, witnesses said.
The statement said the attacker tried numerous times to leave the bus, but he was locked inside. Li eventually escaped through a window and was arrested. Police said some body parts were found in various areas of the bus and Li was carrying some.
McLean's family and friends, many wearing t-shirts with his picture, wept as the details were read in court.
Li did not understand his actions were wrong, psychiatrist Stanley Yaren told the court.
Yaren testified on Tuesday that Li is schizophrenic, and has been since about 2004.
"A voice from God told him Mr McLean was the force of evil and was about to execute him," Yaren said.
Li believed he had to act quickly to protect himself.
Yaren said Li was briefly hospitalised in 2003 or 2004 after he was picked up by police, who found him walking along a highway "following the sun" as he said he was ordered to by God.
The doctor said Li still had hallucinations and heard voices but was on strong anti-psychotic medication.
Yaren described him as "a victim of this horrendous illness".
McLean's family found the suggestion that Li was a victim repugnant.
"At some point, my son's biggest mistake was going, 'How's it going?' And for that his head was cut off and his insides were splayed all over the inside of that bus," said Carol deDelley, McLean's mother.
"I'm having a very difficult time having any sort of sympathy. ... I don't think Mr Li is a victim here."
Li, who came to Canada in 2001, pleaded at an earlier hearing in August for someone to "please kill me".
Canada does not have the death penalty.
According to the facts, Li also begged police to kill him when he was arrested.
"I'm sorry. I'm guilty. Please kill me," Li told police after his arrest, according to the statement of facts read in court.
His former wife said Li, who became a Canadian citizen in 2005, took unexplained bus trips and sometimes rambled. He was hospitalised briefly but never sought medical attention.
Before he left on the bus trip, he left his former wife a note: "I'm gone. Don't look for me. I wish you were happy."
Li's trial is expected to last only three days, and only two witnesses - a psychiatrist for each side - will take the stand to testify about his mental shape.
Agencies
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