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Lao Rongzhi Goes on Trial in Nanchang, Accused of Seven Killings With Fa Ziying

After nearly 20 years as a fugitive, the 46-year-old pleaded not guilty and told the court that her former boyfriend, executed in 1999, had coerced her.

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AI-generated illustration, not the real place or event: a large stone courthouse up a flight of steps in winter mist

Lao Rongzhi spent nearly 20 years living under other people's names. On Monday, December 21, 2020, she stood in the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court in Jiangxi province under her own, charged with intentional homicide, kidnapping and robbery in a string of crimes from the late 1990s that left seven people dead, among them a three-year-old girl. She was 46. A Xinhua photograph showed her in the courtroom that day, and the trial ran for two days, ending on Tuesday.

The prosecution's account, as the Nanchang People's Procuratorate set it out, was of a partnership. Between 1996 and 1999, prosecutors said, Lao and her then boyfriend, Fa Ziying, carried out four kidnappings, robberies and murders across Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, conspiring together and dividing the work. Lao, they said, worked as a hostess in entertainment venues and picked out wealthy targets. Of the seven people killed, the procuratorate said Lao had been involved in killing five.

Lao pleaded not guilty and said she had been coerced, state media reported. According to Procuratorial Daily, the newspaper of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, she told the court that her part had stopped at kidnapping and robbery and that she had not known Fa would murder the victims. She denied there had been any conspiracy, insisted she was a victim too, and said Fa had used and coerced her when she was 21. She described being beaten and said she had thought about suicide and about running away but did not know whom to ask for help. She wept as she apologized to the victims' families and offered to compensate them. Her lawyer did not contest the robbery and kidnapping facts, but argued that the evidence did not prove she had caused anyone's death or committed intentional homicide.

Fa had answered for the crimes long before. He was captured in Hefei, in Anhui province, in 1999, sentenced to death and executed later that year. Lao became a fugitive, using false identities to stay ahead of the police until she was caught in Xiamen, in Fujian province, in 2019. She was charged with the three crimes in August 2020.

What stood on December 22, 2020. When the hearing closed, Lao was accused, not convicted; the account of her role came from the prosecution, and she denied taking part in any killing. Reports differ on the month of her capture in Xiamen: the Global Times gave December 2019, while other accounts put it in November.

Sources