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The man accused of killing RCMP Const. Shaelyn Yang in a Burnaby, B.C., park is testifying in Vancouver to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.
Jongwon Ham, appearing in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday, is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Yang in October 2022.
An interim publication ban temporarily prevents reporting what Ham, wearing a black shirt under a grey suit, is saying at the fitness hearing.
The hearing was ordered by Justice Michael Tammen on the day Ham’s judge-alone trial was set to begin in January.
A fitness hearing, or fitness trial, allows a judge to determine if the accused has the mental capacity to understand the charges and is able to meaningfully participate in their own defence, and does not examine their mental state at the time the alleged crime was committed.
Yang was stabbed to death on Oct. 18, 2022, when she tried to speak to a man sheltering in a tent in Burnaby’s Broadview Park.
B.C.’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, has said the man in the tent was shot and wounded by Yang.
In a December 2022 statement, the office said its chief civilian director determined there were no reasonable grounds to believe an officer committed an offence in the incident.
RCMP have said Yang was a mental-health and homeless outreach officer who had joined the police three years before her death.
