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Ming Jiang bought £178,000 of chips in the Manchester 235 casino just days after he is alleged to have murdered and dismembered his wealthy friend, Yang Liu, 36, a jury was told Tuesday.
The defendant reportedly also gambled away £273,115 in two casinos right after the brutal murder.
From the Manchester Evening News:
After the murder he dismembered the body, severing Mr Liu’s head and limbs, probably in the bathroom of his own one-bedroom flat in Beswick, east Manchester, prosecutors say.
He is then accused of putting the torso in a suitcase and set it on fire after dumping it in a remote lay-by on the roadside over the moors to Sheffield before returning to Manchester.
It was found on October 10 last year by walkers just off the A628 Woodhead Pass near Tintwistle in Derbyshire.
After his arrest on October 20 last year, Jiang claimed the two men were gay lovers and his friend was an escort paid to have sex with older Chinese men, the jury was told.
Jiang also suggested that shadowy underworld figures may have had some involvement in the murder as part of a gambling dispute.
“This was a murder done for gain,” Peter Wright QC told the jury during his opening statement. “It was as cold and as ruthless as it was calculated and quite deadly.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
