The man who infamously shouted 'my father is Li Gang ' was sentenced yesterday by a Hebei court to six years in jail for his drunken hit-and-run fatality.
But the verdict on Li Qiming, delivered yesterday by the Wangdu County People's Court in Baoding, where his father worked as a deputy district police chief, was greeted with scepticism that family connections helped him avoid worse punishment and muzzled media criticism.
Li Qiming was found guilty of drink-driving and running over two students while speeding through the campus of Hebei University in Baoding on October 16. Chen Xiaofeng, a 20-year-old student, was killed in the accident.
Chen's family challenged the outcome, maintaining that the driver should be charged with endangering public safety, a felony with the minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, instead of with a regular traffic crime, for which the maximum sentence is seven years.
Chen's older brother, Chen Lin , who attended the hearing yesterday, said: 'It is not about whether we are satisfied. It is a matter of the nature of the accident.'
The incident grabbed national headlines and sparked an outcry after Li Qiming was widely quoted as brushing off witnesses' accusations by saying 'my father is Li Gang' when he was stopped from fleeing the scene. His apparent contempt for the law and attempts to use his father's influence to avoid punishment stirred a firestorm about rampant official corruption and made his quote a household catchphrase.