An Australian university was accused in court this week of breaking the law after it failed to report a mainland student was missing.
The Shanghai student, Zhang Hongjie, had been undertaking a degree in media studies at the University of Canberra but had not attended classes for more than six months.
In January, her body was found after police broke into her flat in a Canberra suburb.
She had been strangled and struck with a hammer the previous June, allegedly by a fellow student from Shanghai, Zhang Long, who returned to the mainland before the discovery.
An Australian Federal Police investigator, Detective Senior Constable Matthew Neesham, told the Coroner's Court in Canberra the university had sent Zhang a letter warning her about the absences from classes. The letter said she would be reported to the Immigration Department as being in breach of her visa unless she attended.
But Detective Neesham said a police review of the university's file on Zhang revealed that no action had been taken.
He said that, under an act of federal parliament, the university was obliged to report Zhang's absence to the Education Department which was responsible for reporting this to Immigration.