Court delays, a demand for execution and now a call by the victims’s father for a trial on live TV mean that the case of the Nanjing college student murdered in Yunnan, allegedly by her boyfriend, is shaping up to possibly be the trial of the century.
Li Sheng (李胜) made his demand for the case of his murdered daughter to be heard in public via a live broadcast yesterday, 19 December.
The call has added another touch a drama to a case that has already been filling headline space for more than a year.
As this publication reported last week, the trial date was announced as being last Friday, 17 December, after Li also demanded that his daughter’s murderer receive nothing less than the death penalty.
However, at the last moment, the court session was delayed after the plaintiff claimed the defence had submitted illegal evidence.
Now there comes Li’s latest call as a development which has captured the nation’s interest.
Li did not mince his words when he claimed there is an intentional effort behind the scenes to protect the case from the public ear for reasons of supposed personal privacy for the victim and those involved.
Then Li threw the fat on the fire. “Suppose that people with ulterior motives now want the case to be carried out behind closed doors?”, he asked, speaking by telephone with The Paper. “We think there must be a secret behind it.”
Li’s attorney, Yang Zhu, stated that sexual impropriety had been established and that the case did not involve state secrets or personal privacy. As such, the trial may be heard in public.
But will it? That’s the question on the minds of many today.
Li says his demand has the purpose to avoid similar tragedies. And, as he said, “[To] give a warning to the people of the whole country and a sense of security to many girls”.
It would also bolster a sense of confidence in a legal system regarded as a place shrouded in secrecy and back door dealings, where the truth is an opaque concept.
It has been reported that the case will be heard sometime after this week, but a specific date has not yet been made clear.
Li’s 21-year-old daughter died at the hands of her boyfriend and two others on 21 July, 2020, in Menghai County of Yunnan Province.
Lured from Nanjing under false pretenses, it is believed that once there, her boyfriend instructed the others to kill her.
