A court in Huzhou , Zhejiang province , has amended the sentences of two auxiliary police officers convicted of raping two young women after a previous ruling sparked a nationwide outcry.
The Nanxun district court sentenced the officers to three years' jail three months ago after the judge accepted a defence lawyer's argument that the two officers had committed the rapes out of a 'temporary motive of crime'.
The lenient ruling stirred up anger on internet chat rooms and the term 'temporary rape' spread through cyberspace, mocking rampant judicial injustice on the mainland.
Under immense public pressure, Huzhou's Intermediate People's Court overturned the previous ruling in early November. On Thursday, it sentenced the two officers, Qiu Guohua and Cai Jirong , to 11 and 111/2 years respectively, according to Today Morning Express, a newspaper published by Zhejiang's provincial government.
Auxiliary police officers are not civil servants. They are usually security guards hired by police stations.
The Huzhou court said the two officers had taken the two 19-year-old women for dinner in June and raped them in a guesthouse room after the women became drunk.
