CLIFFORD COONAN in Beijing
The teenage son of a popular People’s Liberation Army entertainer has been detained on suspicion of participating in a gang rape in Beijing, sparking widespread public anger.
Li Tianyi, 17, was detained on Thursday night for allegedly participating in the gang rape, the South China Morning Post reported.
His father, Li Shuangjiang, 74, is a famous singer and music department dean at the Beijing-based People’s Liberation Army Academy of Arts.
Li jnr was in trouble in 2011 when he rammed a couple in his souped-up BMW and then assaulted them, saying “Who will dare call the police?” He spent a year in re-education through labour, and his father was forced to make a full apology for the son’s antics.
There has been a range of high-profile cases involving the children of top Communist Party officials and the “second generation rich”, China’s army of newly wealthy.
Privileged positions
There is a feeling among the common people that the children of the new rich and the “princelings”, as the offspring of the political elite in China are called, follow a different code to ordinary people, and abuse their privileged positions.
The incident was reported on major news portals such as Sina.comand Tencent.com, but there was no information about the crime or the victim.
Memories are still fresh of a crash in March last year, when a black Ferrari 458 Spider ran into a bridge, reportedly killing the driver and seriously injuring two female passengers.
Although the authorities refused to name the driver, local media reported he was Ling Gu, son of Ling Jihua, a close ally of president Hu Jintao.
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