A truck driver who was given a life sentence for not paying tolls has been granted a retrial after an online outcry over his case. China Daily reports:
Shi Jianfeng, a self-employed driver in Yuzhou of Central China’s Henan province, was sentenced on Dec 21, after being found guilty of using a fabricated military driving license and fake military plates on his trucks to evade tolls totaling 3.68 million yuan ($558,000).
But the Pingdingshan Intermediate People’s Court, which sentenced Shi, said in a statement on Friday that as the case had “triggered the media’s attention and heated debate”, authorities had subsequently questioned Shi again.
Shi now claimed to have been manipulated by a relative, and as this “new evidence” might have changed the outcome of the case, the court had decided to hold a retrial, said Liu Penghua, director of the political department of the court on Friday.
Tollgate records showed Shi’s two trucks, transporting sand and gravel, avoided paying tolls 2,362 times in the nine months between May 2008 and January 2009. The average toll each time would have been 1,558 yuan.
