Drunk driver charged for causing 5 deaths

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-27 20:26

NANJING: A man who was charged with drink-driving causing five deaths and injuring four people in June went on trial Friday in east China.

The trial opened at 9:30 a.m. in the Nanjing Municipal Intermediate People's Court, in Jiangsu Province, and lasted for about two hours.

Zhang Mingbao, the suspect, was charged with crashed his Buick LaCrosse into a street lamp, then hit a watermelon stand before running into nine passers-by and six parked cars on the evening of June 30.

Three people died at the scene and two died later, including a pregnant woman and her husband. Four others were slightly injured.

Zhang was confirmed to have been driving with a blood alcohol limit of 381 mg of alcohol per deciliter, well above the legal limit of 80 mg.

Zhang was detained by police on July 1.

Legal experts believe he could be jailed for negligence, or face the death penalty for endangering public security.

More than 100 people, including the families of the victims, reporters and local residents, were present at the court hearing.

The mother of the pregnant victim said she would never accept any apology from the driver, asking the court to hand down harsh punishment to the man who killed her daughter, son-in-law and grandson.

The Nanjing court did not issue a verdict Friday.

Chinese courts have sentenced drunk drivers who caused grave fatal accidents to death, but some verdicts were later revoked by higher courts.

China's Supreme People's Court explained that death penalty should be used only in extremely serious crimes, when the criminal has a strong criminal intent and had a negative social impact on a large scale.

Chinese police had netted and punished 148,000 drink drivers by the end of October since a nationwide crackdown was launched on August 15, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Chinese police initially launched a two-month nationwide campaign to root out drink driving following a series of fatal traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers. The program was extended on October 19 to the yearend.