Retrial ordered for man convicted of making air gun parts

A retrial has been ordered for a man who was sentenced to 13 years in prison last September in East China's Anhui province after a tool he invented for dredging a toilet - as he claimed - was found being used for making an air gun, according to the Anhui High People's Court on Wednesday.

The case was sent back for retrial because some of the facts in the verdict made by the Fuyang court were unclear and evidence was insufficient, according to the provincial court.

Jiang Zhiping, 29, was a product designer in Yiwu city in East China's Zhejiang province.

The tool, a kind of plastic grip to hold a device for dredging a toilet with compressed air, was Jiang's very first invention, according to a previous report by Beijing Youth Daily.

The illegal use of the grip was revealed after a farmer in Fuyang in East China's Anhui province found his chicken was killed by air gun in March 2016.

After receiving the report, police arrested a suspect surnamed Chen and found two air guns. In addition, the police also found a large number of parts for assembling air guns, including the grips designed by Jiang, in May 2016.

Five more people were then arrested, including Jiang, and the police found they bought the grips from Jiang directly.

In Jiang's warehouse, the police found 3,870 of these grips, which were then identified as gun parts.

Photos provided by Jiang's sister to thepaper.cn showed that the shape of the grip resembles a gunstock, while she and the defense lawyer believed such a design is not rare in industrial designing.

The Fuyang Intermediate People's Court rendered the verdict in September, and then Jiang appealed to the provincial court.