HONG KONG - A 29-year-old Hong Kong mother was jailed for 32 months on Tuesday for dumping the body of her three-year-old son in the rubbish after he choked to death on a sticky dumpling.

Leung Man Ki, a single mother, was sentenced in Hong Kong's district court for 32 months for preventing the burial of a corpse, according to a judiciary spokeswoman.

The court had heard how Leung had fed her son a glutinous chicken dumpling for breakfast last June, but it got lodged in the child's throat and caused his death.

She then discarded the boy's body in a plastic bag and left it with other trash on the street. The body was taken away by a rubbish truck to a landfill and has never been recovered.

Leung had originally been charged with murder, but the charge was reduced to the lesser offences of cruelty and prevention of burial. -- REUTERS