Chinese man jailed for making ‘gun’ toilet handles will face retrial
- Facts were unclear and evidence insufficient in the original judgment last September, court rules
- Defence challenges method used by police to identify the handles as guns
A man from east China who last year was sentenced to 13 years in prison for manufacturing toilet handles that looked like gun parts is facing retrial after a provincial court ruled that the original evidence was insufficient.
The Anhui Provincial High People’s Court ruled in a second-instance hearing on March 13 that the “facts were unclear and evidence insufficient” in the original judgment last September, when Jiang Zhiping was convicted of illegally manufacturing, trading and storing guns, Jiang’s relatives told news outlet Thepaper.cn on Tuesday.
As a result, the High Court has sent the case back to Anhui’s Fuyang Intermediate People’s Court for retrial.
Jiang, a designer of plastic household items from Jiangxi province, was responsible for the design and production of a high-pressure toilet flushing handle that was identified as a gun part by police who were investigating a network of gun sellers across China.
Police traced the supply network through an air gun that was discovered in a village near Fuyang in April 2016 and confiscated 3,870 toilet handles from a warehouse owned by Jiang.