Crime and Punishment in Beijing

There's been a couple of high profile sentences passed down in Beijing courts in recent days. Earlier in the week a man was sentenced to, depending on who you believe, either a two and a half year or a two year jail term and also fined around RMB 450,000 for attempting to illegally re-sell a large amount of Olympic tickets.

According to People's Daily:

The 41-year-old man, surnamed He, agreed to buy Olympic tickets for two companies in Beijing and Guangzhou at prices 50 percent to60 percent higher than the official ones, according to the Xicheng District People's Court.

He booked 527 Olympic tickets with 230,000 yuan (about 34,000 U.S. dollars) through the online ticketing system, using 2,500 pieces of identity information illegally obtained through his friend's construction company and other means, the court said.

In another case a Beijing man has been sentenced to death for murdering his mistress in August last year. According to AFP as reported in the Straits Times:

A Beijing man was sentenced to death for the murder of his mistress in a crime that included blowing up her apartment in the centre of China's capital, state press said Monday.

Ms Ding, who worked for Wu at the same company, was strangled by her boss and lover after an argument at her Beijing apartment that occurred while her husband was away on business, the report said. After killing Ms Ding, Wu then opened the apartment's natural gas line in an effort to make it look like she had accidentally suffocated, it said. When Ms Ding's husband arrived home three days later, the gas exploded, injuring him and causing extensive damage to over 30 apartments in the building, according to the report.

Although not Beijing related, the ongoing saga of the faked South China Tiger photographs received more headlines and set BBS forums a chatter as news that the man who took the infamous photograph, Zhou Zhenglong, has had his prison sentence commuted on appeal. According to Xinhua:

Zhou was initially sentenced on September 27 at the People's Court in Xunyang County. According to the first ruling, the 54-year-old was given two and a half years in prison, a 2,000 yuan fine and was ordered to return the reward.

Reuters, quoting the Beijing News, report that a higher court commuted the sentence and the Zhou has now returned home after spending the past two months in custody. For more details on the original scandal see Roland Soong's coverage over at ESWN.

Finally, a recent spate of stabbings in the capital - the tragic murder at the Drum Tower during the Olympics, two foreigners being robbed and assaulted earlier this month and also the case of a student attacking and killing a professor that led to a police crack down on knives in schools and universities - continued yesterday with a man going on a stabbing spree in the square out the front of the Beijing Railway Station. No-one was killed in the indiscriminate attack, but 4 people were injured.

Links and Sources
The Beijinger: How to get your hands on some Olympic tickets
Yahoo: Image of apartment that was blown up in August 2007
Xinhua: Chinese farmer returns home after getting suspended sentence for faking tiger photos
ESWN: The South China Tiger Photographs
The Beijing News: 男子北京站旁砍数人