AN AFRICAN healer who killed his English wife because he thought she was going to sell him as a slave was jailed for her manslaughter yesterday.

Exeter Crown Court had been told that Hibiekoun Hien, 54, became disorientated after he moved from a village in Burkina Faso, where he had spent his entire life, to Linda MacDonald’s semi-detached home in Buckfastleigh, South Devon. He feared that his new wife planned to sell him to pay for a new car.

Hien, who had admitted manslaughter last month, appeared for sentencing yesterday and was jailed for five years by Mr Justice Steel.

He was a highly regarded spiritual healer in his own country and came to Britain unable to speak a word of English. Miss MacDonald, 53, an alternative therapist, was unable to speak his language, Djoula.

The court was told that he spent seven weeks in Britain before trying to escape back to Africa, but he got lost before he could reach the airport.

Miss MacDonald had tried to persuade him to stay, but had then relented. At the time she was killed they were waiting to arrange a flight to take Hien home.

Miss MacDonald died from head injuries after he struck her twice with an iron bar. He then fled by jumping out of a first-floor window because he did not know how to unlock the front door.

The judge told him: “The circumstances of this case are so extraordinary they present me with a very difficult sentencing exercise. The attack on your wife seems to me to be immediately connected to your arrival in this country and facing the enormous cultural gap that involved.

“In the few weeks you were in England you appear to have become paranoid, fearing quite irrationally that people, including your wife, were trying to kill you or your wife was going to sell you.”

Geoffrey Mercer, QC, for the prosecution, said that Miss MacDonald met Hien during a visit to Burkina Faso, where she had gone to learn traditional healing methods.

Hien was an elder of the Dagara tribe who believed he was destined to marry a white woman. The couple married last August, despite having no common language, and returned to live in Devon where they set up an African healing business.

Mr Mercer said: “Hien had obvious difficulties adjusting to life in Buckfastleigh and suffered substantial mental confusion. He believed people were plotting to kill him or he would be sold.

“He admitted striking the deceased after an argument and then jumping out of a window, which is how he himself sustained injuries.

“He told the officers, ‘She told me people were coming to kill me. She repeated that to me. What would you do? I hit her. I did not know she was going to die. That was not my intention.’ ”

Paul Dunkels, QC, for Hien, said that the contrast between his life in Burkino Faso and Buckfastleigh had led to the tragedy.

He said: “Until August last year this man was living in a rural community in Burkino Faso in a village without electricity or running water. He held a respected position as an elder and healer and came from a family with a tradition of healing, which he is believed to have inherited from his ancestors.

“Burkino Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world and he, like most of the population, could neither read nor write. For him to come here was not just to travel to a foreign country where he could not speak the language and nobody could speak to him. It was to travel across a cultural divide that is immense.

“Notwithstanding the companionship of his wife, he was completely isolated from any community existence and as the weeks went by the cultural difference left him increasingly confused and stressed and anxious.”

The judge ordered that Hien should be deported after serving his sentence in Britain.

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