Indefinite time in psychiatric ward for Hong Kong man who fatally stabbed 2 in mall

A Hong Kong man with a mental disability has been sentenced to an indefinite period in a psychiatric hospital for stabbing two women to death in a frenzied knife attack at a shopping centre three years ago.

The High Court on Tuesday ordered former warehouse worker Szeto Sing-kwong to receive mandatory psychiatric treatment and supervision at Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre in Tuen Mun, noting that he continued to display limited insight into his mental ailment after killing two people for no logical reason.

The presiding judge also praised a chef at the shopping centre who stopped the assailant and prevented him from leaving the scene until police arrived.

Szeto, 43, pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility after prosecutors accepted that he should not be held liable for murder as he had experienced an acute relapse of paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence.