Report: Bullet features insufficient to determine hostage victims' killer

A forensic expert said on Monday that the features of the bullet fragments recovered from the victims in last year's hostage tragedy in Manila were insufficient to determine the killer. According to a report of the Hong Kong Standard newspaper on Tuesday, forensics expert Godfrey Lee Kai-fai told a Hong Kong inquest into the August 23 killings that "features on the fragments were insufficient to identify from whose rifle the bullets came from." Lee, chief inspector of the Forensic Firearms Exam Bureau, testified that there was insufficient evidence to confirm whether the bullets came from the weapons of the police snipers or the hostage-taker, dismissed police inspector Rolando Mendoza. The report said Lee's analysis into the deaths of eight hostage victims differed from that of a police ballistics expert who said the recovered bullet fragments were "too small and mangled" to show the type of gun they came from. On August 23 last year, Mendoza held hostage a bus in Manila carrying Chinese tourists from Hong Kong. At the end of an 11-hour standoff, Mendoza and eight Chinese hostages were killed. No residue of tear gas Meanwhile, the report also said Lee Wing-sze, a chemist of the Government Laboratory's Forensic Toxicology Section, said no tear gas chemicals were found in the bodies of the victims. She testified before the court that no tear gas residues were found in the samples from the mucous membranes in the nasal cavities and respiratory tracts of the victims. The report said the chemist believed the victims could have died before rescuers threw gas canisters into the bus or the chemicals substances could have degenerated before the victims were examined. Bullet fragments The report also said Lee testified that 18 groups of fragments from eight bullets were recovered from five victims. Sixteen fragments of three bullets were recovered from Fu Cheuk-yan and seven fragments of two bullets from another victim, Ken Leung Kam-wing, the report added. The two victims, both fathers, threw themselves at the hostage-taker in a bid to overpower him, the report said. The report said three victims — Wong Tze-lam, his wife Yeung Yee-wa and her sister Yeung Yee-kam — were each hit by a round of fire. The report added that no bullet fragments were found in the three other fatalities. – VVP, GMA News