Police reopen inquiry into teen-girl drowning

Source: Xinhua  |   2008-7-2  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

POLICE in southwest China have reopened an investigation into the death of a teenage girl, which has sparked violence protests involving up to 30,000 people on Saturday.

Police authorities in Guizhou Province published details on the death of Li Shufen, a 17-year-old student in Weng'an County, and released them at a news conference in the provincial capital Guiyang last night.

Wang Xingzheng, the provincial public security department spokesman, said Li was with her boyfriend, Chen Guangquan, and two other people before she jumped into the river and drowned on the night of July 21. The three tried to rescue her, but failed. Her body was recovered about 3am the next day.

Wang gave no motive for the alleged suicide, but police sources who spoke to witnesses said that Li wanted to die because her family had treated her badly.

The official account of her death was dismissed by her family and others who believe she was raped and killed by people who had connections with local government and police officials.

Forensic investigator Wang Daixing, who attended the conference, said there was no evidence that Li had sexual intercourse before her death.

A third autopsy was scheduled to be performed late last night by forensic experts and the results would be published soon, said the police spokesman.

He said the three people who last spoke to Li - Wang Jiao, Liu Yanchao and Chen Guangquan - were from local villages and none had connections to any officials.

But doubts mounted over the death and eventually led to a mass protest. Confrontations between police and the girl's relatives added fuel to the public anger.

Some of the protesters were students of a school where the girl's uncle, Li Xiuzhong, worked. Li, who is now in a local hospital, was confronted by a policeman named Zhang Min at the county's public security bureau and was badly beaten by unidentified men in the street after leaving the police station.