Shenzhen police have arrested a university student suspected of helping a drunk driver flee the scene of a crash on May 26 that caused an electric taxi to catch fire, killing the three people inside.
Police said the 21-year-old man is a student at Shenzhen University.
Shenzhen traffic police told a press conference that Hou Peiqing, the drunk driver of the Nissan GTR that crashed into the taxi, crossed Binhai Road after the accident and phoned the university student, asking to be picked up.
The student then took a taxi to the scene and found Hou. He stopped another taxi and accompanied Hou to a yacht club at the Dameisha Scenic Resort, the Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.
Hou's car was travelling at a speed of at least 180km/h when it slammed into two taxis early on the morning of May 26, killing the driver and two women passengers in a BYD electric taxi. Three female passengers in Hou's car were also injured. Hou, a driver for a construction company, turned himself in to police about seven hours later.
Shenzhen's physical evidence inspection and appraisal centre has said the three people killed in the accident were all burned to death, the Shenzhen Evening News reported. Traffic police confirmed that Hou bore full responsibility for the accident.
Questions have been raised about whether the people in the electric taxi were killed in an explosion or fire. A traffic police officer said the city government had asked experts to investigate the case and would release the results of the investigation soon.