Poisoning defendant claims no intent to kill

The suspect in a poisoning incident at a prestigious Chinese university said Monday he did not intend to kill his roommate, and simply wanted to know how his roommate would react to the poison.

Lin Senhao, 28, made the remarks during his appeal hearing, which was heard by the Shanghai High People's Court on Monday.

In April 2013 Fudan University graduate student Huang Yang, 28, died after from drinking from the water fountain in his dormitory.

During their investigation, police authorities concluded Huang was poisoned, which led to liver and kidney failure.

In February this year, the Shanghai No.2 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Lin to death for intentional homicide.

Lin said he didn't plan to kill Huang and poisoning him was simply an April Fool's Day joke. "I was simply curious how Huang would react but I didn't consider how he could be affected physically. I never imagined he could die."

Even after Huang was hospitalized, Lin said he believed that Huang could recover within two weeks based on his laboratory experiments. "Some of the lab rats I injected with the chemical recovered," Lin said.

The defendant, speaking in a low voice, remained quite stable emotionally throughout the trial except when he was asked to say something to Huang's family and friends. He started to cry and couldn't talk for a while.

At the hearing, Lin's lawyer, Si Weijiang, argued that the police lacked sufficient evidence to even prove that Huang died of poisoning. Hu Zhiqiang, a legal medical expert who testified at the hearing, claimed that Huang died from acute viral hepatitis B.

The hearing lasted more than 10 hours in a packed courtroom. Huang's father said there was no reason for his family to forgive Lin because Lin was still using April Fool's Day as an excuse to kill their son.

The court failed to announce a verdict.