Northwest China farmer stands second trial for faking tiger photos
17/11/2008 17:26
The farmer who was accused and found guilty of faking photographs of a
critically-endangered tiger species in the wild is standing second trial today
in northwest China's Shaanxi Province after his appeal against
conviction.
The court hearing began at 8:30 a.m. at the People's Court in
Xunyang County, in response to Zhou Zhenglong's appeal against the first ruling
handed down in September.
The same court sentenced Zhou, aged 54, to two and
a half years in prison and fined him 2,000 yuan (about US$292) on Sept. 27, on
charges of fraud and illegally owning a gun.
Zhou appealed against the ruling
on Oct. 8.
Zhou, a native of Zhenping County in Shaanxi, faked pictures last
year of a South China tiger, a subspecies that is believed to have been extinct
in the wild in China for years.
The provincial forestry department announced
Zhou's "discovery" to the public in October 2007, and gave him a 20,000-yuan
reward.
Doubts mounted on the Internet after netizens found an old Lunar New
Year poster showing a tiger that looked exactly the same as Zhou's
photo.
Police arrested Zhou in June after seizing an old tiger poster, which
Zhou allegedly used to produce his photos. They also found a wooden model of a
tiger paw and 93 bullets in his home.
A spokesman with the Shaanxi provincial
government said in June that Zhou had used the wooden cat's paw to fabricate
tiger's footprints in the snow.
The Shaanxi provincial government announced
in late June that Zhou's tiger photos were fabricated.
Zhou's defense lawyers
claimed outside the court after the first case that Zhou was not solely
responsible for the bad publicity generated by the case, saying the "cursory
release of the news by relevant departments" helped promote the fraud.
A
total of 13 government staff in Shaanxi were sacked or reprimanded as a result
of the case.
Li Qian, a junior wildlife preservation official in Zhou's home
county of Zhenping was sacked for failing to conduct a site survey to prove the
tiger photos genuine, said a spokesman with Shaanxi provincial department of
supervision.
The spokesman said Li also fabricated a survey report and was
therefore directly responsible for the government's cursory release of Zhou's
"discovery".
The case also led to the sackings of Zhenping County's forestry
chief Qin Dapeng, who failed to find holes in Li's report and trade chief Xie
Kunyuan, who provided cameras and films to Zhou and helped Zhou develop the fake
tiger photos.
Four officials from the provincial forestry department were
also removed, including two deputy chiefs.
Xinhua
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