Crime

The last thing Shanghai man Tony Qian expected while walking with his wife on grassland below the 28-floor residential buildings of their community was to be hit by a falling piece of dog excrement. And yet, as he looked up to see where the foul missile had come from, he saw a tissue fluttering to the ground which, on closer inspection, was stained with the same muck which had struck him on the shoulder. Qian was lucky. There have been numerous reports in recent years of critical injuries and deaths caused by people flinging dangerous items – including a bicycle, stroller and even a kitchen knife – from their high-rise windows. But his efforts to bring the poo perpetrator to justice went now

A man who killed a Chinese millionaire before chopping him into 108 pieces has been found not guilty of the businessman’s murder, after a judge ruled that the intent to kill had not been proved. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes instead found Zhao Li, 59, guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, as well as interfering with human remains. Outside the court on Tuesday, Zhao’s lawyer Ian Donaldson praised the ruling and said his client was a “completely normal” man, whose actions on May 2, 2015, were considered “unthinkable” by those who knew him. Zhao, an experienced hunter, did not dispute having shot dead Yuan Gang, 42, with a rifle in the driveway of his Vancouver

A founding pastor of China’s Early Rain Covenant Church has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Chinese court for inciting subversion of state power and other crimes. Wang Yi was detained in December 2018 along with other senior figures in the prominent underground Christian church during overnight raids across various districts of Chengdu, the southwestern city where the church was founded. On Monday, the Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court released its judgment, which said the pastor was also convicted of illegal business operations. In addition to the jail term, Wang would be stripped of his political rights for three years. Personal assets valuing $7,000 would also be confiscated.

China’s extrajudicial detention of sex workers or their customers, known as “custody and education (C&E),” is set to be abolished in what experts called a long-overdue move. The detention system has been used to crack down on prostitution, which is illegal on the mainland, since the 1980s. Sex workers and their clients could be detained for up to two years without trial in centers overseen by the police. More than 300,000 people were detained using C&E between 1987 and 2000, according to a report by Asia Catalyst, an advocacy group focused on health issues. Although the government does not publish regular numbers of detainees, mainland Chinese media have reported a steady decrease in detenti

On October 15, 2018, 46-year-old tech expert Jason, from New York, flew to Hong Kong on a week-long business trip.  He checked into a room at the Four Seasons, in Central, and when a lunch appointment was canceled, he happily nursed an afternoon drink at the hotel’s Pool Bar. “Then I looked up,” he recalls, “and this incredible, striking woman walked in.” Jason remembers her warmly embracing the waitstaff, who responded with a fawning adoration reserved for regular clients. “She was shown to the table next to me, we made eye contact, she smiled, and that was it,” Jason says. Newly separated from his wife, his enchantment could be forgiven. Her lips were full, her flowing, lust­rous hair fram

Detectives in Hong Kong investigating the seizure of two powerful home-made bombs at a school campus believe they were intended for an attack on police at a democracy march that happened at the weekend, sources said on Tuesday. The apparent bomb plot, revealed amid long-running anti-government unrest, prompted a police union to describe the city’s security situation as at its “most alarming” in decades, even worse than during a wave of armed robberies in the 1990s. Force insiders believed the would-be bombers were forced to abandon the attack planned for Sunday after a group of their associates were arrested in a police swoop that morning, hours before the march – which attracted hundreds of

Doctors spent four weeks removing pieces of paper from the eyes of a 7-year-old girl in China after an extreme bullying incident. Three boys stopped the young girl on her way to class and forced scraps of paper into her eyes. Doctors, who plucked-out dozens of paper fragments, said they had never seen a case like it, mainland media reported on Monday. The incident occurred in Yuzhou, a city in the middle of the central Chinese province of Henan, in September.  The girl said she was accosted by the boys as she returned to class after lunch one day.  “They opened her eyes wide … crumpled a few scraps at a time and squeezed them in,” her mother, surnamed Li, said. The girl complained of poor v

The murder of a 10-year-old girl by a teenage boy has shocked China, reigniting fierce debate about the appropriate punishment for minors committing violent crimes. Many people were upset to hear last week that the 13-year-old boy, surnamed Cai, was given three years in a juvenile detention center, which officials said was the maximum punishment under current laws. Police in the northeastern city of Dalian said the boy confessed to taking the girl to his home on October 20 and tried to sexually assault her before stabbing her repeatedly. He then hid her body in bushes near their apartment building, where she was found the next day. In China, suspects aged 13 or under can’t be charged or pun

A Shanghai man who flew to Hong Kong to pursue a cyber-romance was jailed for 10 months on Tuesday after his supposedly 22-year-old girlfriend turned out to be 12. Interior designer Lu Wei, 28, came to the city last year to meet the girl, whom he had met playing games online, a Hong Kong court heard. Only after things had turned intimate did he learn that the girl, who had told him she was 22, was actually a decade younger. The District Court heard he decided to stay in the city and accept his punishment, despite having already bought a ticket home. He was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty earlier to two counts of unlawful sex with a girl under 13, which carries a maximum sentence o

Chinese tycoon Li Jianhua once planned to live next door to his daughter in Vancouver after he retired from a career that has brought him political prestige and great wealth in China. The daughter, Carol Li, proclaimed “devotion and filial piety” to her father. He declared “love and affection” for his only child. But instead of living out his days beside his daughter, widowed Li Jianhua, 65, is battling her in Canadian courts over a $14.1 million Vancouver real estate fortune. Unproven and untested accusations of fraud and violence were made. Li denies his daughter’s claims. She denies his counterclaims. The conflict, depicted in legal documents obtained by the South China Morning Post, shed