Man pleads not guilty in Canada dismemberment trial

Lin family's lawyer Daniel Urbas addresses media after the first day of the Magnotta trial, in Montreal, Canada, Sept 29, 2014. (Xinhua/Andrew Soong)

A Canadian who allegedly killed and dismembered a Chinese student pleaded not guilty in a court trial on Monday as his lawyer said he suffers from schizophrenia -- a mental illness that can exempt him from criminal responsibility.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 32, is charged with the first-degree murder of Jun Lin, 33, a computer engineering student at Concordia University, in 2012 in Montreal, committing indignities to Lin's body and broadcasting obscene materials.

Magnotta is accused of dismembering Lin and mailing body parts to Canadian political parties and to two elementary schools, which horrified Canadians and garnered headlines around the world.

Magnotta admitted to the acts underlying the five offenses he is charged with, including killing Lin, but he pleaded not guilty to each charge.

"A person is not responsible if he or she suffers from a mental disorder at the time of the act," defense lawyer Luc Leclair told the jury.

Leclair said Magnotta had been seen for years by different psychiatrists, and that he had been diagnosed in Montreal in 2012 with having a borderline personality. Other psychiatrists have diagnosed him with schizophrenia, Leclair said.

Wearing black pants and a grey sweater, Magnotta sat quietly in the defendant's booth behind glass after pleading not guilty to all counts and remained emotionless as opening arguments by the prosecution and defense were read.

Prosecutor Louis Bouthillier said an alleged email from Magnotta to a journalist in 2011, some six months before the killing, indicates Lin's murder had been planned and deliberate.

Caroline Simoneau, a forensics investigator and the first witness of the case, articled more than 150 photos from the scene where Lin's dismembered body was discovered in 2012.

The prosecutor said the jury will also see a video allegedly made by Magnotta that shows the killing.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer told the jurors -- eight women and six men -- to avoid all media coverage of the case.

Before continuing with proceedings, Cournoyer extended the publication ban at the request of Lin's family of not reproducing images with body parts and containers known to have contained body parts.

Lin's father, Diran Lin, traveled from China and was in the courtroom. He intends to stay in Montreal until the end of the trial, his lawyer, Daniel Urbas, said. The trial is expected to last six weeks.

"The father is here. He wants his questions answered," Urbas told reporters. "He wants to know how it happened, what happened to his son, when it happened and especially why, even though that may not ever really be given as evidence in this case."

The case began in May 2012 when the dismembered torso of Jun Lin was discovered in the Montreal suburb of Cote-des-Neiges that sparked an international manhunt for Magnotta that ended in Berlin with his arrest.