Tenor's son sentenced to 10 years in prison for rape

A Beijing district court sentenced the teenage son of Li Shuangjiang, a renowned Chinese tenor, to ten years in prison for rape on Thursday.

The Beijing Haidian District People's Court also handed down jail sentences to four other defendants on charges of rape.

The four other defendants, including three juveniles, were given prison terms ranging from three to 12 years.

The five men were detained on Feb. 21 after a woman surnamed Yang reported to police that she had been taken to a hotel and gang raped after drinking with the men in a bar on Feb. 17.

The case soon came into the spotlight as the son of Li, dean of the music department of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, was among the five suspects.

Li, 74, built his reputation in past decades by singing popular patriotic songs.

According to the court, the younger Li and four other defendants took Yang to a hotel room by force, beat her up and gang raped her early in the morning on Feb. 17. Li and another defendant surnamed Wei gave Yang 2,000 yuan (326.8 U.S. dollars) afterwards.

Yang suffered minor injuries, according to judicial authorities.

The court held two pretrial meetings on July 22 and Aug. 20, in which lawyers for the five suspects and the victim disagreed on whether it was a gang rape or prostitution case.

Li's mother, Meng Ge, had applied for the trial to be a public hearing, but her application was overruled by the court.

Because the case involves juveniles, whose privacy is protected by law, the trial should be heard in private sessions, the court said.

On Aug. 28 and 29, the five defendants stood trial in court. With the exception of Li, the four remaining suspects pleaded guilty, and three of them apologized.

The court said the defendants' behavior did great harm to the social order, and they received different sentences because the degrees of their offenses vary.

Four juvenile defendants received mitigation of punishment as they were protected by law.

Families of the defendants and delegates from organizations protecting juveniles' and women's interests were present when the verdict was announced in court.

The defendants did not appeal the sentence in the court.