Hairdresser evades the chop at retrial
Print Edition
A CHINESE tycoon who was given the death penalty for illegal fundraising had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment at a trial in east China’s Zhejiang Province yesterday.
Wu Ying, 33, a former hairdresser who built her business empire from scratch, was sentenced to death in 2009 for swindling investors out of 380 million yuan (US$61million).
The penalty sparked a public outcry due to claims she had been harshly treated because she was a private entrepreneur.
At a retrial in May 2012, her sentence was reduced to death with a two-year reprieve.
As the reprieve period neared its expiration, Wu, who was held at Zhejiang Provincial Women’s Prison in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, applied for a new trial in the hope her penalty might be further commuted.
Under Chinese law, criminals serving a stay of execution can apply for a reduction in their penalty to life imprisonment, or even a 25-year jail term if they have no record of criminality in prison.
Wu’s case had earlier sparked heated debate over the country’s fundraising system, which outlaws all forms of private lending.
In 2007, when chairman of Bense Trade Co, Wu was convicted of cheating investors out of 380 million yuan from May 2005 to January 2007 in private lending scams.
The court heard she amassed the fortune by fabricating facts, deliberately hiding the truth and promising high returns.
Yao Haitao, an official with the Zhejiang Provincial Higher People’s Court, said it will post a video of Wu’s commutation trial online.
Such proceedings are usually held behind closed doors.
The Supreme People’s Court began to push forward a reform of the court system last year.
In March, it ordered all courts to adopt open trials for commutation of sentences and parole cases, and publish verdicts to allow some people to serve their sentences outside prison if they qualify on medical grounds.
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