WINNIPEG, Manitoba – A Canadian judge ruled Thursday that a man accused of beheading and cannibalizing a fellow Greyhound bus passenger is not criminally responsible due to mental illness.
The decision means Chinese immigrant Vince Li will be treated in a mental institution instead of going to prison. The family of victim Tim McLean dismissed the trial as a “rubber stamp” that allows Li to get away with murder.
“A crime was still committed here, a murder still occurred,” said Carol deDelley, McLean’s mother. “There was nobody else on that bus holding a knife, slicing up my child.”
The judge said Li should not be held criminally accountable for stabbing McLean dozens of times last July and dismembering his body while horrified passengers fled.
Justice John Scurfield said Li’s attack was “grotesque” and “barbaric” but “strongly suggestive of a mental disorder.”
“He did not appreciate the actions he committed were morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self-defense,” Scurfield said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_re_ca/canada_bus_beheading
