Subject of Immigration Saga Is Held in Wife’s Stabbing Death

Tialhei Zathang, the former math teacher from Myanmar whose journey through America’s immigration system was chronicled in the Los Angeles Times, has been arrested for allegedly stabbing his wife to death in front of their two youngest children.

He was reunited with his wife, two sons and daughter in September, nearly six years after he fled Myanmar and applied for asylum in the United States. They lived in an apartment in Catonsville, Md., a suburb of Baltimore.

According to court papers, the parents and two children were in their kitchen Saturday night. Zathang, 45, was drinking, but his wife, Hlawntial, was not, the papers said. The older son, Tialceu, 20, was not at home.

Zathang’s younger son, Tlunaguk, 11, told police that around 11 p.m., he saw his father take a knife from a kitchen drawer. His sister, Rinsang, 10, said she heard her mother ask: “ ‘What did you get the knife for? Are you going to kill me?’ ”

Tlunaguk told police he then saw his father move toward his mother with the knife.

Zathang then called his wife’s brother and told him that she was dead, the documents said. When the brother-in-law arrived at the apartment, Zathang was sitting silently at a table in the kitchen with his head in his hands.

Baltimore County police detectives who interviewed Zathang said he did not remember much of what happened. Zathang told the detectives he had a “problem” with his wife and referred to her death as an “accident,” they wrote.

He was charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson.

The children are temporarily living with relatives.

One of Hlawntial’s cousins, a witness for Zathang during his asylum case, said Monday that the killing was a shock to everyone.

“He loves very much his wife and his kids too,” said Philip Hrengling, a pastor. He said Zathang had worked hard in recent months to take care of his family.

Zathang’s reunion with his wife and children in September was emotional. His wife was ecstatic to see her family together. Zathang said his heart was pounding so hard that his chest hurt.

Zathang won asylum on political grounds in January 2002. He initially had been turned down by an immigration judge, but an appellate board overruled the decision after his case was featured in The Times.

His story about his life in the Southeast Asian nation once known as Burma never wavered.

A Christian who demonstrated for democracy in Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist nation ruled by a military dictatorship, Zathang said he had been detained by the military for 11 days in 1988 and was beaten until he was unconscious. He was left with a still-noticeable indentation on the right side of his forehead.

In 1998, he said, he escaped with his wife and children after the wife of a village leader warned him that he was about to be arrested again. The family walked through the jungle for 16 days until they reached India, he said.

But fearing that he would be returned to Myanmar, he fled to the United States, using an Indian passport purchased on the black market. He left his family in hiding in India, vowing to bring them to join him in the United States once he won freedom here.

Unlike many asylum applicants, Zathang had evidence to back up his claims of abuse.

A University of Illinois professor testified that he had met Zathang in Myanmar. An exiled member of the Burmese parliament who said he had known Zathang for more than 20 years vouched for him as well. An Indian newspaper article, written after Zathang had fled Myanmar, said the police were seeking him for interrogation.

Once Zathang won asylum, U.S. officials demanded that the family undergo expensive DNA testing to prove that they were his blood relatives. By the time the family was reunited, they were virtual strangers, even though they had spoken by telephone as often as they could.

Zathang’s drinking had gotten him into trouble before. In the summer of 2003, he was arrested in Ohio for driving while intoxicated, but the charge was reduced to a misdemeanor.

It was unclear Monday what would happen to Zathang and his family. If he is convicted, he could be deported back to Myanmar.

Immigration experts said the children’s status was less clear. Their mother will be buried Saturday.