Retrial begins for high-profile child trafficking case

A court in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, opened a retrial of a widely-followed child abduction and trafficking case on Friday after some criminal facts were newly discovered, China Central Television reported.

The case involved Yu Huaying, who had been sentenced to death by the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court last year for abducting and trafficking 11 children in the 1990s for financial gains.

Yu later appealed to higher court, and the Guizhou High People's Court ordered the intermediate court to rehear the case because it determined that the original ruling omitted some criminal facts.

According to CCTV, the omitted facts referred to six other children suspected of being abducted and trafficked by Yu, which means that the total number of the victims in Yu's case increased from 11 to 17.

On Sept 18, 2023, Yu, 60, from Yunnan province, stood at trial at the intermediate court for the first time. She was identified as benefiting from abducting and trafficking children from Chongqing and Guizhou to Hebei province between 1993 and 1996.

Considering the large number of children Yu abducted and the fact that her offenses were extremely severe and had a negative effect on society, the intermediate court imposed the death penalty on her, and also stripped Yu of her political rights for life and confiscated all of her personal assets.

Yu pleaded guilty during the trial, but she soon appealed for leniency in sentencing for the offenses to the high court.

At the beginning of this year, the high court sent the case back to the lower court, with some new criminal facts being found and some remaining unclear. In order to thoroughly investigate all the criminal facts, it said a retrial was necessary.

Yu's case aroused the public's widespread attention in 2022 when police in Guiyang received a report from Yang Niuhua, who was snatched by Yu in Guizhou and taken to Hebei in 1995. Soon, Yu was captured in Chongqing.

About a month before Yu's retrial, her husband, Wang Jiawen, pleaded guilty to child trafficking in Yunnan, with a local court expected to announce the verdict at a later date.