Thursday 26 September 2013

Chinese General’s son found guilty of gang rape, sentenced to 10 years in jail

A court in Beijing found Li Guanfeng, the 17-year-old son of prominent military artist Li Shuangjiang, guilty on Friday charges of gang-raping a woman earlier this year and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

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Chinese General’s son found guilty of gang rape, sentenced to 10 years in jail

Patrick Boehler
26 September 2013

A court in Beijing found Li Guanfeng, the 17-year-old son of prominent military artist Li Shuangjiang, guilty on Friday charges of gang-raping a woman earlier this year and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The verdict is likely to bring an end to more than six months of intense scrutiny of Li’s lifestyle, which triggered a wider debate about privilege and special treatment reserved for the offspring of senior officials.

The Haidian District People’s Court in Beijing found Li, who was formerly known as Li Tianyi, along with four other men guilty of forcibly taking a woman surnamed Yang from a bar in the university district to a hotel room, where they raped her, on February 17.

“In the course of committing the crime they have performed obscene acts to the victim, which should be seen as part of the criminal act of gang rape and have been put into consideration when determining the level of punishment,” according to verdict shared on the microblog of the Beijing judiciary.

Li’s sentence is harsher than all except one of his co-defendants, because he chose not to plead guilty. Another defendant surnamed Wang, the only one of them who was an adult when the crime was committed, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The other three received jail sentences of between three and four years.

Li’s father, 74-year-old Li Shuangjiang, is a household name in China, a successful singer and art educator working the People’s Liberation Army. He enjoys a non-combat rank generally believed to be equivalent to that of a major general. However, at the order of top leader Xi Jinping in late August, the PLA issued guidelines strictly banning military artists like Li from associating themselves with military ranks.

Sources close to the Li family had in recent months spread information about the victim and the owner of the bar, where Li met the woman, to journalists in efforts to discredit their testimony ahead of the trial. Li’s mother, Meng Ge, in a last statement ahead of the verdict said that the court should consider that the victim was a bar girl. The court ruled that her profession “had no direct relationship” to the charges.

Li’s lawyer Lan He told journalists outside the court on Friday ahead of the verdict that Li would appeal the sentence.

Three of the other defendants have paid the victim each 150,000 as compensation. The civil lawsuit will be heard after the criminal trial, which ended on Thursday.

Li has been in the public eye since childhood, when he performed patriotic songs with his father, who is a leading official with the PLA’s art academy and holds the non-commanding rank of a two-star general. His mother Meng Ge is also a well-known singer for the People’s Liberation Army.

In September 2011 Li gained a more notorious prominence, when he attacked a couple after his unlicensed BMW crashed into their car and they tried to stop him from fleeing the scene. That assault landed him in a juvenile correctional facility for a year.