HONG KONG - A HONG Kong woman who faked her own pregnancy has
pleaded guilty to cutting open the belly of a pregnant woman and
trying to remove her baby. The infant later died.
Leung Sin-ting, 27, pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of
manslaughter and inflicting grievous bodily harm on the expectant
mother, court spokesman Brenda Yu said on Friday.
Prosecutors said Leung invited the woman, who was eight months
pregnant, to her apartment last September after the two met on a
childcare website, the South China Morning Post newspaper
reported.
It was there that Leung strangled the woman with a cord until
she passed out and then slashed a 4-inch (10-centimeter) wound in
her abdomen, it said.
The woman survived the attack but the infant died six months
later after suffering wounds that caused brain damage and impaired
bodily function, the newspaper reported.
Leung said she was jealous of the pregnant woman's happiness and
wanted the child for herself, it said. Details of the case were not
released at the time of the crime and were only made public this
week. A message left with prosecutors was not immediately
returned.
According to the news report, the prosecution said Leung, who
claimed to have suffered miscarriages in 2003 and 2008, pretended
to be pregnant by wearing towels tied under her clothes, according
to the newspaper report.
She managed to persuade her husband of four years that she was
carrying a baby and obtain a doctor's certificate to claim
maternity leave, the newspaper said.
Sentencing was set for Oct 27 to give prosecutors time to
determine whether Leung should be committed to a mental hospital
and whether she posed a long-term risk to the community.
A similar case was reported in June in the United States, where
an Oregon woman was accused of cutting a foetus out of another
expectant mother after they met during a search for baby clothes on
the Internet. The woman was found dead in her apartment, and the
accused was charged with kidnapping the infant girl.
-- AP
