Pastor seeks 'more time' for a miracle

By TONY STICKLEY

Pastor Luke Lee yesterday asked a High Court judge to give him "more time" until the woman he is accused of killing rises from the dead.

Lee is accused of manslaughter, but blamed a demon for killing the woman six days after he drove it from her body.

And he predicted in court for a second time that Joanna Lee would rise from the dead.

The prophesied resurrection is due to occur before next Monday.



"I beg you to give me more time until that happens," Lee told Justice Barry Paterson and the jury in the High Court at Auckland.

Lee, aged 38, also known as Yong Bum Lee, faces two alternative counts of manslaughter by causing death by assault or by having undertaken an exorcism, omitting to use reasonable knowledge, skill and care on or about December 9 last year at his Mt Roskill home.

Lee, speaking through an interpreter, told the court that Ms Lee died on December 9 as he was casting out a demon.

He said the demon told him he had "had enough" and was leaving.

A few seconds later Ms Lee bit her tongue, closed her eyes and did not move again. But he said he and his followers prayed for her over the following days and she came back to life "to some degree".

But when he and the others were taken to the police station once the police were alerted six days after the exorcism, Ms Lee was left alone in the house with no one to protect her.

"The demon who was expelled out of her came back to her again and killed her," he told the jury.

Lee quoted extensively from the Scriptures to explain and justify what he had done.

He acknowledged that two earlier predictions he made that Ms Lee, a 38-year-old Korean visitor, would return to life, had not been fulfilled.

This was because God was delaying her return to test his faith.

Lee told the jury he was innocent on the basis of the Bible.

He said that during the exorcism he had a long conversation with the demon that possessed Ms Lee and which spoke out of her mouth.

Lee said that before he found Jesus he was a swindler, the "king of the sinners" who divorced his wife and abandoned his children in Korea.

For six days after the exorcism, Lee and his band of followers prayed for Ms Lee to come back to life. In that time the body became black and putrescent.

One of Lee's followers told of lying on top of the decaying corpse on Lee's instructions and blowing into the mouth in an effort to revive her.

Earlier Crown prosecutor Aaron Perkins told the jury the death was a needless and senseless end to a precious life.

Such taking of life would always be called to account, and there was no exception because of deeply held religious conviction.

Lee had been totally consumed by his religious fervour and had lost touch with reality.

He failed to recognise that Ms Lee was struggling furiously for life.

Justice Paterson will sum up this morning.