Elizabeth Zhong homicide: Fang Sun's lawyers present closing argument to jurors
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Loading... - David Smith
- 31 May 2022
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Businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong's statements to multiple people before her violent death that she feared for her safety because of threats from Fang Sun cannot be taken at face value, Sun's lawyer told jurors today as he argued for a not guilty verdict.
"Things are not quite as clear or set in stone as some would like to think," Sam Wimsett said during his closing address for the murder trial, which is now in its sixth week in the High Court at Auckland.
"She might well have wanted to get the threat narrative out there," Wimsett said, suggesting that Zhong's complaints to police and in civil court affidavits seemed to align with moments during which she would have wanted to divert the spotlight from allegations of her own misdeeds. "She in essence wanted to cast these people on the other side in a sinister light."
Zhong's body was found in the boot of her Land Rover on the evening of November 28, 2020. The grisly discovery came amid a lengthy, heated civil court battle with Sun over control of their multi-million dollar businesses.
Believing that Zhong had caused him and his family to lose more than $26 million in investments, Sun was irate enough to break into her Sunnyhills home and stab her more than 20 times - nearly decapitating the 55-year-old grandmother - prosecutors alleged yesterday.
Wimsett responded today that his client, who has slimmed down since his arrest, was too overweight to have been "scaling tall fences or gates or be acting like some cat-like burglar" that night. And even if Sun could pull it off physically, he was well aware that Zhong had tried to portray him as "some sort of gangster with no regard for the law", Wimsett said.
"He's not a complete idiot. He's fully aware that the whole world would be looking to him if any harm happened to Ms Zhong."
So killing Zhong, Wimsett reasoned, would be the last thing his client would want to do.
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"He's not some rogue operating on the margins of society or in secret like some sort of Netflix crime drama," Wimsett added, describing his client as having worked out his frustration with Zhong in a manner that showed "great respect for the law" - through the civil court system and by meeting criminal prosecutors about allegations she embezzled from their companies.
Wimsett also criticised the DNA evidence that was presented against his client, including a test of Zhong's fingernails that found the defendant 670 times more likely to be the contributor of the DNA than a man selected at random from the New Zealand population.
But the DNA test was not able to distinguish between the defendant and his son, who was known to Zhong and had travelled in her vehicle a year earlier, he noted.
The "incredibly low level of DNA" detected in the same bag as the clipped nails could have been transferred from an old item in the boot of her car, such as a receipt touched by his son, he suggested. Read More...
