Hong Kong, July 29 (DPA) An unemployed Pakistani man has been jailed for life after strangling three prostitutes in a three-day killing spree in Hong Kong, a media report said Wednesday.
Nadeem Razaq, 24, who came to Hong Kong when he was one year old, claimed in police interviews that he murdered the women on the orders of armed debt collectors in Macau, the South China Morning Post newspaper said.
Razaq said the debt collectors wanted him to murder eight women to wipe out a 150,000-Hong-Kong-dollars ($19,230) gambling debt, but he managed to escape after killing the three victims.
He later retracted his confession and said he did not kill anyone.
However, a jury found him guilty of murdering Sze Ming-lan, 35, Sun Xiumin, 30, and Tse Hau-yuen, 35, at their one-woman brothels in March 2008.
Justice Clare-Marie Beeson told him: “By your wicked crime, you’ve deprived (the victims) of their lives and destroyed their families.”
Police traced Razaq through a palm print, blood and semen stains at the crime scenes.
Police Detective Senior Inspector Lui Tak-keung said there was no evidence to support Razaq’s claim that he was acting under orders from Macau debt collectors.
