Court upholds man’s prison sentence for buying ivory products

A man’s appeal against a conviction for illegally buying products made of ivory has been rejected, Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court said on Monday.

The 48-year-old man, surnamed Lei, from Hebei province, was earlier sentenced to nine years and six months in prison by Beijing’s Xicheng district court for illegally purchasing endangered wildlife products.

The illegally bought ivory was worth about 900,000 yuan ($129,595), according to the district court, which also fined Lei 10,000 yuan.

Lei was unhappy with the verdict and appealed to the intermediate people’s court. 

“But after a review, we found the facts and evidence identified by the lower court were true and sufficient,” the intermediate court said in a statement.

Lei’s behavior breached the Criminal Law, and the amount of ivory he bought was large, it said. The law stipulates that people who illegally purchase endangered wildlife products should be jailed for between five and 10 years if the circumstances are serious.

“The original judgment should be upheld, as the conviction and sentence were correctly in line with the law,” the intermediate people’s court said.

In October 2017, Lei paid 200,000 yuan to buy about 17 kilograms of ivory products via WeChat, the Chinese instant-messaging app.

He was caught by police on Nov 8 last year after paying another 26,000 yuan on WeChat to buy 4.42 kg of ivory products.