A Chinese farmer and gravel dealer who was sentenced to life in prison for evading more than US$560,000 in highway cargo tolls by using fake military license plates has now avoided the harsh punishment as well.
After a public outcry about what was deemed harsh treatment of Shi Jianfeng (時建峰) and widespread grumpiness over high tolls in general, state media said yesterday that authorities have overturned Shi’s life sentence.
Shi was sentenced last week for fraud. Fake military license plates on two of his trucks that carried gravel allowed them to avoid tolls more than 2,300 times because military vehicles are exempt.
Prosecutors in Henan Province confirmed that the case against Shi had been sent back to police for more investigation, the China Daily newspaper reported.
“We found that charging the elder Shi with fraud might be too severe in this case,” Wu Fang?xiao, spokesman for the official prosecutors’ office in Pingdingshan city, told the newspaper.
Wu said the decision was made because Shi’s younger brother had turned himself in as being responsible for the fraud.
The chief judge of the Pingdingshan Municipal Intermediate People’s Court and two court officials are being questioned for failing to properly investigate Shi’s case and handing down a sentence while lacking evidence, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.
However, Wu said Shi could still be charged with forgery and spend up to seven years in prison if found guilty.
News of Shi’s sentence triggered an uproar among Chinese who argued in online postings and commentaries that shorter sentences were given out for the more serious crimes of rape or murder. The comments also strayed beyond Shi’s case to popular complaints that highway tolls are too high, especially for a farmer.
Authorities have scrambled to look responsive. On Tuesday, the vice minister of transport told a news conference that highway tolls will go down — gradually.
Weng Mengyong (翁孟勇) gave no details.
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