Sun Xiaoguo (born Chen Guo and also known by his alias Li Linchen; 27 October 1977 – 20 February 2020), was a serial

child rapist Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whether ...

and gang leader from

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Sun was known for the brutality of his crimes as well as his evasion of justice. Sun was sentenced to death in 1998, but his sentence was commuted to twenty years due to corruption within the system. He was released in April 2010, after serving 12 years and 5 months. After being released from prison, Sun participated in organised crime under the name "Li Linchen". During a crackdown on organised crime, Sun was arrested on charges of leading an organised criminal gang. When Sun's name appeared in the list of criminal gangs, his case attracted the attention of the media, as he had been sentenced to death 21 years prior. Sun was executed on 20 February 2020. Sun's brutal methods stunned the investigating staff, and the phrase " engXiaoping rules in the day, unXiaoguo rules in the night" spread in Kunming.

Early life

Sun was born in

, Yunnan on 27 October 1977. In December 1992, before Sun reached the age of

enlistment Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require ...

, his stepfather Li Qiaozhong took advantage of his position as deputy director of the Police Department of the Yunnan Border Guard Command to change Sun's date of birth to 27 October 1975. Subsequently, Sun served in various law enforcement positions.

Criminal activities

October 1994 – April 1996

On 16 October 1994, Sun, who was a student of the Public Security Border Defense Forces Kunming Command School, and two other youths wandered by a car. They dragged two women into their car on the South Ring Road, Kunming, and drove to Chenggong district, where they gang-raped them. On 28 October 1994, Sun Xiaoguo was detained, and on 4 April 1995, his arrest was approved. During this time, Sun's age was corrected from 19 back to 17. In an attempt to get Sun released, his mother Sun Heyu provided a false certificate of illness. On 20 December 1995, the People's Court of Panlong District sentenced Sun to three years in prison. In April 1996, the second ruling of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court ruled that the defendant's appeal was rejected and the original sentence was upheld.

1997

On 27 March 1997, Sun was not sent to prison because of medical procedures. According to the Chinese Yearbook of Law, within eight months of his release, Sun and his gang committed at least eight crimes, including rape, intentional injury, forced obscenity and insult to women, and

provocation Provocation, provoke or provoked may refer to: * Provocation (legal), a type of legal defense in court which claims the "victim" provoked the accused's actions * Agent provocateur, a (generally political) group that tries to goad a desired res ...

. Between April and June 1997, Sun raped several underage girls in the Chayuan Lou Hotel. The victims included a 15-year-old girl, a 17-year-old female student and her friend, another 15-year-old female student and a 13-year-old female student. On 17 June 1997, Sun brought a female student under the age of 14 to the Xingzhao Hotel in Kunming and attempted to rape her. Due to her resistance, Sun did not succeed. He then instructed his subordinates to take the girl downstairs and beat her to the point of being "unrecognisable". On 13 July 1997, Sun's gang had a dispute with another gang in the Bopei Entertainment City in Kunming. Sun and his associates committed vehicular assault and assaulted rival gang members. After the police investigated the gang dispute, they found that Sun was actually a criminal who was currently supposed to be in prison. The police called Sun's mother, who claimed that Sun had returned to his grandmother's house in Sichuan and was not involved in the dispute. On 22 October 1997, Sun assaulted a restaurant patron who did not obey his commands. On 7 November 1997, Sun kidnapped two 17-year-old girls and took them to Kunming's Yueguangcheng Night Club, where he violently

assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

ed one of them. The next day, Sun moved the girls to a beer house in Haosheng Entertainment City in Kunming and further assaulted them. In the end, one girl suffered severe injuries, multiple extensive soft tissue contusions throughout the body, right frontal lobe contusion and laceration, 2–8

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

fractures Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...

in the left thoracic rib, limited lower limb movement and peripheral nerve damage. She also suffered retrograde amnesia, and fell into a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

1998 trial and aftermath

On 18 February 1998, the Kunming Intermediate People's Court tried and sentenced Sun to death, and

deprivation of political rights Civil death ( la, civiliter mortuus) is the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights. It is usually inflicted on per ...

for life for rape; 15 years in prison for assaulting women; 7 years imprisonment for intentional harm; 3 years imprisonment for provocation and nuisance; 2 years, 4 months and 12 days of imprisonment for other offences; the total punishment was execution and deprivation of political rights for life. On 9 March 1999, the Higher People's Court of Yunnan province reprieved his death sentence for two years. On 27 September 2007, the Yunnan Higher People's Court retrialed Sun and sentenced him to 20 years in prison In 2008, while Sun was detained in the First Prison in Yunnan Province, his mother, Sun Heyu, and stepfather, Li Qiaozhong, asked Yunnan justice system officials to change Sun's inmate assessment score to "active improver", and falsely credited several inventions to Sun. These falsifications counted towards the reduction of Sun's sentence. In January 2009, Sun was transferred to the Second Prison in Yunnan province. Due to his supposed inventions and good behaviour, according to Article 78 of the criminal law, Sun was eligible for a

commutation Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to: * Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work Mathematics * Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...

of two years and eight months.

2010 release

On 11 April 2010, Sun was released after several commutations which resulted in an actual sentence of 12 years and 5 months. After being released from prison, he changed his name to Li Linchen, became a shareholder in several businesses and operated many bars in Kunming. On the evening of 21 July 2018, Sun beat up a person known only as "Wang" in Guandu District, Kunming, causing

them Them or THEM, a third-person plural accusative personal pronoun, may refer to: Books * ''Them'' (novel), 3rd volume (1969) in American Joyce Carol Oates' ''Wonderland Quartet'' * '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'', 2003 non-fiction by Welsh ...

to be seriously injured and several other people to suffer various degrees of injury. After the incident, the Guandu Branch of the Kunming Public Security Bureau opened an investigation on 30 July 2018.

Intervention of Central Anti-crime Supervision Team and arrest

On 3 January 2019, Sun's case was transferred to the Guandu District People's Court and it was discovered that Sun was a criminal who had been sentenced to death in 1998. This breach of justice was conveyed to the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee. At this point, the case began to attract significant media attention. On 18 March 2019, the Guandu District People's Court arrested Sun; public security organisations investigated Sun's suspected crimes after his release from prison in April 2010, and found that Sun and his gang members had gathered to fight, opened a casino, tried to cause trouble, and falsely imprisoned others, as well as other suspected crimes. In April 2019, after the 20th Central Anti-crime and Evil Supervision Team entered Yunnan, the case was designated as a key case for supervision. In May, the Office of the Leading Group of the National Anti-Crime Special Campaign also listed the case. On 4 June 2019, a team consisting of the National Supervisory Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, led by the

Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission The Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (), commonly referred to as ''Zhongyang Zhengfawei'' (中央政法委, literally "Central Poli-Legal Commission") in Chinese, is the organization under the Central Committee of the Chinese Commu ...

, the Office of the Leading Group of the National Anti-Crime Special Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice urged relevant departments of Yunnan Province to handle Sun's case. On 26 July 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court declared the original trial decision on 27 September 2007, to be the result of a mistrial and announced a retrial. Sun was detained while he was re-tried.

2019 re-trial and execution

On 14 October 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court re-tried Sun's rape and assault offences. In addition, the Procuratorate of Yunnan Province filed a public prosecution for Sun's suspected participation in gang organisations after his 2010 release. Nineteen public officials and affiliates suspected of crimes relating to Sun's case were summoned to court for review and prosecution. On 6 and 7 November 2019, the Intermediate People's Court of

Yuxi City Yuxi () is a prefecture-level city in the central part of Yunnan province of the People's Republic of China. The administrative center of Yuxi is Hongta District. Yuxi is approximately south of Kunming. Geography Yuxi is located in the center ...

, Yunnan Province tried 13 people, including Sun, on suspicion of leadership and participation in gang organisations. The People's Court of Jiangchuan District of Yuxi City also accused Li Shuang and other 22 protectors involved in Sun's case of opening a casino, provoking trouble, assault, false imprisonment,

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

and intentional harm. On 8 November 2019, the Intermediate People's Court of Yuxi City, Yunnan Province continued to hold court, and announced the trial of a criminal case involving 13 people including Sun, accusing them of the organisation, leadership, and participation in gang organisations. Sun was accused of organising and leading a gang, setting up casinos, causing trouble, false imprisonment, intentional harm, hindering testimony, and

bribery Bribery is the Offer and acceptance, offering, Gift, giving, Offer and acceptance, receiving, or Solicitation, soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With reg ...

. Combining the punishments, Sun was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for 5 years, and confiscation of all personal property. Sun's rape trial was scheduled to occur later. On 17 December, the Yunnan Provincial Higher People's Court publicly re-trialed the previous case and dismissed the

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

of 4 people including Sun, and maintained the original sentence of 25 years in prison. On 14 December 2019, the Yunnan Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection investigated five officials involved in Sun's case. They were punished with warnings within the party. On 15 December 2019, multiple courts (including the Yuxi Intermediate People's Court of Yunnan Province) issued public sentences on 19 criminal cases involving public officials and important related persons in Sun's case. Among them, Sun's stepfather Li Qiaozhong was sentenced to 19 years in prison, and Sun's mother Sun He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. On 23 December 2019, the Yunnan Higher People's Court publicly sentenced Sun in the retrial of the crimes of rape, assault, intentional injury, and provocation from 1997, and decided to uphold the first ruling of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court in February 1998, in which Sun was sentenced to death. On 12 February 2020, the Supreme People's Court approved the death sentence issued by the Higher People's Court of Yunnan Province. On 20 February 2020, according to the Supreme Court's death penalty execution order, the Kunming Intermediate People's Court executed Sun.

Rulings on Sun's associates

On 15 December 2019, courts including the Yuxi Intermediate People's Court of Yunnan Province, the People's Court of Hongta district in Yuxi City, and the People's Court of Tonghai County in Yuxi City sentenced 19 criminal cases involving people protecting Sun, including officers protecting him and his accomplices. Some defendants were also fined separately and the stolen money was confiscated.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sun, Xiaoguo 1977 births 2020 deaths Gang members People from Kunming Chinese people convicted of rape 21st-century executions by China People executed by China by lethal injection People executed for murder