Canadian convicted of killing Chinese student withdraws appeal

A Canadian, found guilty of killing and dismembering a Chinese student, dropped an appeal for his first-degree murder conviction, local media reported Tuesday.

Luka Rocco Magnotta, 32, was convicted on charges including 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 was also found guilty 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.

According to Radio-Canada, Magnotta would withdraw his applications to appeal. Magnotta's lawyer was supposed to appear in court on Wednesday to argue for the appeal.

Magnotta had admitted to the acts underlying the five offenses he was charged with, including killing Lin, but pleaded not guilty to each charge on grounds of mental illness.

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

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.

In Canada, a first-degree murder conviction stipulates an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

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