 'Lenient' sentence upheld
By Huang Zhiling and Wang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-25 07:27 CHENGDU: Liao Zhiyong, a resident of Pengzhou, Sichuan province, heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday when the Chengdu municipal intermediate court in the provincial capital of Sichuan gave its final judgment on his daughter's murder case. The court ruled that Liao Tingting, Liao Zhiyong's elder daughter, who suffocated her mentally disabled younger twin sister Liao Juanjuan in August last year, should serve a three-year prison sentence and five years' probation. The court's final sentence concurred with that of the Pengzhou municipal court (Pengzhou is a city under Chengdu's administration) ruling of Feb 26, whereby taking into account Liao Tingting's severe depression at the time she committed the murder she should be sentenced to three years' imprisonment and five years' probation. Mou Sheng, deputy chief of the Pengzhou procuratorate, however, said the sentence was too lenient and brought the case to the Chengdu municipal intermediate court on March 10. The case went to trial on April 17 at Chengdu municipal intermediate court. Liao Zhiyong solicited signatures from 1,000 people to endorse his and his wife's request for a lenient sentence. Liao Tingting dropped out of high school to take care of her sister, whose mental illness since 2001 had brought the poor family to the brink of bankruptcy, Liao Zhiyong's wife said. Liao Juanjuan, the younger twin, was prone to bouts of violence. She had beaten family members and twice cut her elder sister on the head with a knife. The Chengdu intermediate court complied with Liao Zhiyong's request for leniency because the depression Liao Tingting had suffered owing to her sister's long illness was exacerbated by an unpleasant scene on Aug 22, which compelled Liao Tingting to commit the murder, Wang said. On Aug 21 last year, Liao Tingting, then 19, and her parents visited her younger twin sister Liao Juanjuan at an institute in Pengzhou. When her parents left, Liao Tingting stayed to take care of her younger sister. On Aug 22, Liao Tingting found her sister, naked from the waist down, suffering an attack of incontinence. Disgusted and at the end of her tether she suffocated her sister with a pillow and gave herself up to police. (China Daily 07/25/2008 page3) |
