A Gambian man accused of killing his Filipino wife two years ago has appeared in court charged with her murder. 

Ousainou Touray, 39, appeared at a Hong Kong High Court on Wednesday.

Adele Melano Cuyacot, 40, was found dead at the couple’s home in To Kwa Wan, Hong Kong on 10 April 2019. 

The prosecutor Mark Wei Ho-tong rejected Touray’s claim of self-defence, citing evidence suggesting that his wife, Cuyacot, had suffered extensive injuries and died of suffocation.

“We say the only irresistible inference is that it was the defendant who inflicted the injuries on the deceased, and it was he who killed the deceased,” Wei said.

Wei said the pair were living together in a subdivided unit in a tenement building in To Kwa Wan “at the time when the deceased met her tragic death”.

Their neighbour said he had heard the sound of fighting coming from the unit, coupled with Cuyacot’s screams for Ousainou to stop, at around 4am on April 9, Wei said. 

The neighbour knocked on their door, after which the noise briefly died down, only to resume again for another hour after he returned to his flat.

Wei said the neighbour was later woken up by the sound of fighting and objects hitting the wall at about 9am, but went back to sleep. 

When he woke again at noon, the neighbouring unit was quiet.

At about 9.30pm on April 10, Ousainou went to Wong Tai Sin Police Station and reported that he had fought with his wife and that she had subsequently died, but he denied killing her, Wei said.

Firefighters and paramedics arrived at the unit at 10.04pm to find Cuyacot lying on her back in the air-conditioned bedroom, her naked body wrapped in a white bedsheet, with a Koran and a string of beads placed on her abdomen and music playing in the background.