Luka Magnotta trial: Lin Jun’s former lover testifies

Lin Jun’s Chinese lover left Montreal for the summer on May 13, 2012, just days before the Concordia University student was killed and dismembered by Luka Magnotta.

The last text Feng Lin received from his boyfriend was at about noon on May 25 in China, or around midnight the previous day in Montreal. He replied, but never received an answer, Feng Lin told Quebec Superior Court Wednesday during the third day of Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial.

Wearing a grey suit, sporting a clean-shaven head and looking far younger than his 35 years, Feng Lin testified that he and Jun Lin first met in Beijing in 2009, became lovers during Christmas 2010 and mutually broke it off in May 2012 when Feng Lin returned to China to visit family for the summer. He testified Jun Lin was being pressured by his family to marry a girl. He said they did not know Jun Lin was homosexual. Jun Lin was studying computer science at Concordia and he was studying French at the Universite de Montreal, he said.

Calm and composed, Feng Lin described his former lover as a faithful one who didn’t drink or do drugs. He was adamant that they were not interested in bondage and occasionally looked at porn but weren’t that interested either.

Feng Lin said that after he went back to China on May 13, 2012, he and Jun Lin would exchange 40-50 text messages a day. The last one he received from Jun Lin on May 24, 2012 read, “Good morning.” The witness testified that none of the texts he sent after that were read or opened.

Feng Lin testified he contacted Montreal friends to look for Jun Lin and when that turned up nothing, he jumped on a plane back here.

The witness said he got the tragic news from a mutual friend while transferring flights in Doha, Qatar. Feng Lin testified he heard on the Internet about news of a dead body but he didn’t make the connection.

Feng Lin said he saw the first part of the so-called murder video and was convinced the man tied up on a bed was not his former lover and called police.

Upon cross examination, the defence tried to paint a very different picture of Jun Lin and the relationship he had with the witness.

Lawyer Luc Leclair brought up a gay dating website, gay S&M porn and contact with other gay men, all allegedly involving Jun Lin.

Leclair sometimes questioned how close the two men were, suggesting the witness didn’t know everything about Jun Lin or was lying. Feng Lin testified that he was very much in love with Jun Lin.

Leclair at one point showed Feng Lin stills of a gay porn bondage film he alleges was among others Jun Lin had downloaded. After a few images, Feng Lin testified he was not aware of them and asked, “Do I have to look at these pictures?” The judge agreed with the Crown that the witness had ascertained he was unaware of the items and Leclair stopped showing them to him.

Feng Lin testified he was aware that his former lover had an account on the gay dating site Grindr and that if he was in contact with other men, it was after they had broken up.

Leclair suggested the split was due to Feng Lin being controlling and not because of pressure on Jun Lin from his family to find a girl and marry, as the witness had earlier testified.

Feng Lin kept his composure throughout the testimony which ended late in the afternoon.

“Have a safe trip back home,” Justice Guy Cournoyer told the witness.

Agencies/Canadajournal