Client who molested Alibaba worker jailed for 18 months in China
- Jinan court found Zhang Guo committed coerced molestation after he ‘violated the will of the victim and molested her when she was drunk’
- The woman, who has since been fired, also accused her former supervisor of rape but police last year said his actions did not constitute a crime
A court in eastern China sentenced a client of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group to 18 months in prison for molesting a former female Alibaba employee.
The man, Zhang Guo, met the former employee, Zhou, in July 2021 at a dinner. While Zhou was inebriated, Zhang molested her at the restaurant and again in her hotel room the next morning, the Huaiyin District People’s Court in Jinan in eastern Shandong province on Wednesday.
“The court held that the defendant, Zhang Guo, violated the will of the victim and molested her when she was drunk. His behaviour constituted the crime of coerced molestation,” the court said.
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Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, has not responded to a request for comment.
Zhou told Chinese media outlet Cover News she read the verdict in news reports and felt she had waited for a long time for this result.
“I feel wronged, extremely sad, but nobody can empathise with me,” she said.
Meanwhile, Zhang’s wife said the family would appeal.