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Court debates if woman is guilty of man's death

AN 18-year-old woman who killed a man as he tried to rape her was charged with murder yesterday by prosecutors in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.

In a court hearing yesterday, the prosecutors and defendant's lawyer argued whether the woman should be indicted for murder as she only tried to protect herself in a locked room.

The man, Yang Jinyuan, in his 50s, was killed after the woman stabbed him and bashed his head with the back of a knife. Forensic exam showed Yang had multiple cuts but fatal wounds were in his head and brain.

The woman, whose name was not revealed by the court, met the man at the Guagnzhou Railway Station one night last May. She was going for a vacation but she only bought a ticket for a train that would leave the next day and she had only 50 yuan left in her pocket. The stranger approached her and asked her to share a room with him to save money for her trip.

After he coaxed her into his small rented room, Yang demanded to have sex with her and threatened to kill her if she dared to flee. As the naked man approached her after taking a shower, she stabbed him in the collarbone and an intense fight ensued, ending with the man being killed.

The prosecutors said the woman was indeed trying to protect herself from sexual assault in the first half of the conflict. But after Yang collapsed on the floor with several knife cuts and was unable to attack anymore, she still stabbed him and bashed his head with a motive of murder.

The woman defended that she only struck his head after he tried to grab it from her hand. Her attorney argued that in a locked room and under the threats from the naked man, the woman had little time to think and her actions should be considered in self-defense.

The woman said she found the knife in the room and she also suffered a knife cut in her leg during the fight. She went to a clinic for stitches and registered with her real name, which enabled police to find her later.



 

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