A November trial date has been set for a former Virginia Tech student charged with killing another student in a campus cafe.

Haiyang Zhu, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in the Jan. 21 killing of 22-year-old Xin Yang.

An employee at Au Bon Pain in Tech's Graduate Life Center testified at a preliminary hearing in May that he saw Zhu attack and decapitate Yang with a knife as the pair had coffee together.

Zhu's case is scheduled for a jury trial beginning Nov. 16 in Montgomery County Circuit Court. It is set for four days.

The trial date was set in advance of a meeting of the grand jury, which determines whether a person charged with an offense should face a trial in circuit court. It is rare for a grand jury not to hand up an indictment against someone after hearing only the prosecution's evidence.

If convicted, the maximum sentence Zhu faces is life in prison.

Zhu's mental state had been questioned, but a psychologist who evaluated him found that he was competent to stand trial.

Yang was a graduate student from Beijing who had arrived Jan. 8 to begin classes. Zhu was a doctoral student at Tech, where he began studying at the start of the 2008 fall semester.

Because both were from China, Zhu was helping Yang in her transition to Blacksburg.

-- Shawna Morrison