The section head of the traffic police squad in Fenghuang county, Hunan, had been given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve - which typically becomes life imprisonment - for attempted rape and causing the death of a 16-year-old girl, local media reported.
The Intermediate People's Court in Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture handed down the judgment yesterday on Gong Cheng, 32, for attempted rape and causing the death of a girl from the countryside in neighbouring Hubei, on September 4, according to Rednet.cn, a news portal under the provincial government and the Communist Party's provincial committee. Both are based in Changsha .
Gong was head of the legal affairs section of the traffic police squad.
Lin Yi , 40, received the same sentence. Xu Lei, 32, a police assistant on Gong's team, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Two other men were also sentenced to prison, one for life and the other for 13 years, for their crimes in the same case, the report added.
The Rednet.cn report quoted the judge as saying that in a bid to have sex with the girl and her friend, 15, the five defendants put the drug ketamine into the girls' drinks at a karaoke bar before threatening them and forcing them into sex in a hotel room. The girl later killed herself by jumping from the hotel.