Postgrad says poisoning roommate was April Fool's prank

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Postgrad says poisoning roommate was April Fool's prank

(Xinhua) 19:58, November 27, 2013

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SHANGHAI, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- A postgraduate from a renowned Shanghai university described the murder of his roommate with lab poison as an "April Fool's trick" as his high-profile trial opened on Wednesday.

Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court heard the case of Lin Senhao, whose alleged murder of Huang Yang in April prompted national outcry and soul-searching on the moral education of Chinese youth.

Lin, a medical student at Fudan University, denied holding a grudge against Huang, whom he described as smart but conceited. He claimed the poisoning was a spur-of-the-moment act after hearing Huang talk about April 1 being a day of pranks.

Police said Lin used N-Nitrosodimethylamine, a deadly chemical compound from the university lab, to contaminate a water dispenser in their dormitory on March 31. Huang drank from the dispenser on April 1 and died of organ failure days later.

At Wednesday's trial, Lin confessed to the poisoning, saying he was inspired by stories about chemical compound poisonings in which the criminals were never caught.

But Lin said he did not intend to kill Huang, only to "make him suffer," adding that "the majority of guinea pigs survived" his experiments with the poison.

Huang's murder received national attention as the public was shocked by the extreme act by a promising medical student and questioned the flawed operation of university labs. Media reports also linked the tragedy with that of Zhu Ling, a Tsinghua University student who suffered severe brain damage after being poisoned with thallium in 1994.

Zhu's roommate was suspected to be responsible, but charges were never pressed and the case remains unsolved. Huang's case, however, rekindled the discussion of Zhu's case, forcing Beijing police to respond to speculations that her roommate's family used its influence to hinder the investigation.

（Editor：YanMeng、Chen Lidan）