MONTREAL — Jun Lin was a fitness buff who didn’t smoke, drink or do drugs, a former lover of the slain Chinese student told Luka Rocco Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial Wednesday.
Feng Lin testified that he and Lin were lovers from late 2010 until mid-May 2012, not long before some of Lin’s remains were found in trash outside a Montreal apartment building.
Jun Lin, 33, would go to the gym up to four times a week, Feng Lin testified, adding that they were faithful to each other during their time together.
He said their sexual relationship was normal and they were not interested in pornography.
Asked whether they were into bondage, he replied, “”Absolutely not.“
Lin, a 35-year-old software company manager who travelled from China to testify, said Jun Lin’s family did not know their son was a homosexual.
“He was experiencing some pressure from his family and he was kind of obliged to go into a relationship with a girl for an eventual marriage,” Lin said in response to a question from Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier.
Feng Lin, who has permanent resident status in Canada, left the country to return to China for the summer on May 13, 2012, a little less than two weeks before Jun Lin was slain.
The witness testified they remained friends when the relationship ended and that he texted Jun Lin up to 50 times a day, with his ex-lover’s last message coming on May 24, 2012. That was the day friends last saw the Concordia University student.
Messages then sent by Feng Lin over the next several days went unanswered.
“I sent him a text message, and seeing there was no return on his part, I then sent him several others but these several others were not opened and not read,” Feng Lin said.
He said he commissioned friends in Montreal to look for Jun Lin, but that they were unsuccessful in tracking him down.
He then made arrangements to come back to Canada. At that point, a torso had been discovered in the trash behind the apartment building.
“I did see on the Internet there was the discovery of a body, but it didn’t cross my mind,” Feng Lin said.
While in transit, he was told by a friend about the appearance of a video online that appeared to show Jun Lin.
“Only when I arrived in Montreal, did I look at the first part of the video,” Feng Lin said.
But he didn’t believe it was Jun Lin and went to see investigators.
Magnotta, 32, is charged with first-degree murder in Lin’s slaying and dismemberment.
He also faces four other charges: criminally harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament; mailing obscene and indecent material; committing an indignity to a body; and publishing obscene material.
He has pleaded not guilty to the five charges, although he has admitted to the acts. His lawyer has indicated he will mount a defence of mental disorder to seek a verdict of not criminally responsible.
Earlier on Wednesday, defence lawyer Luc Leclair showed jurors many of the items collected in the trash outside Magnotta’s apertment, including screwdrivers, a hammer, a hand-held saw, clothes, receipts, a jockstrap, a poster of the movie “Casablanca” and a felt red square that was prominent during Quebec’s 2012 student unrest.
Leclair also conducted a similar exercise with several exhibits mailed to Ottawa and Vancouver that were subsequently transferred to Montreal police.
The trial is expected to last between six and eight weeks and feature some 60 witnesses.
Bouthillier has told the eight female and six male jurors he intends to prove Magnotta planned the slaying. He said the evidence will show the accused killed Lin, 33, dismembered his corpse and sent his hands and feet by mail to Ottawa and Vancouver.