For the highly-privileged young men in the private room of a Wudaokou nightclub, the fun had only just begun. None of them could have envisioned the nightmarish scenario that would later evolve.
Hidden in the basement of the Dongyuan Plaza – a six-story building housing an assortment of fast food restaurants and bars – is the Global Club. With its nouveau-riche interior, selective door policy and glittering chandeliers, the club purports to stand out from other, seemingly more affordable nightspots in the area (others suggest it is little more exclsuive than neighbouring dive club Propaganda). Once inside, members can choose between a series of kitsch private rooms, each themed around a zodiac constellation. It is here alleges the Beijing Times, in the club’s 'Scorpio' room, that events began to unravel.
In the middle of a Spring Festival vacation, Li Tianyi, the 17-year-old son of two well-known PLA star singers, left his parents and booked a flight back to Beijing to meet with four close friends: Wei and Zhang (both high school students), Wang (allegedly, the only adult in the group, who Li met previously while staying at a hotel where Wang worked) and Wei's [unnamed] brother.
Although Li is alleged to have previously assaulted a Global Club waiter (and later gagging the victim with cash), he was still very much welcome at the club – where "beer girls" are available to hire and some drinks can cost upwards of several thousand kuai.
Having arrived in his unlicensed white Mercedes – after allegedly sharing 20 Coronas, half a bottle of Johnnie Walker and another half bottle of Hennessy with his buddies – Li summoned the club’s manager Zhang Guangyao, a friend of his, and requested some girls for the room.
Zhang selected two girls –including Ms Yang, a 23-year-old advertising agency executive.
The other girl, surnamed Xue, soon left, after turning down the group's repeated requests that she drink more. She was apparently given a RMB300 tip for her brief stay in the room.
Now the only girl in the room, 23-year-old Yang became steadily more drunk. However, according to reports in the Chinese press, Yang showed an unwillingness to go home with her clients, despite their insistence. Eventually, as a compromise, it is believed that she agreed to join Zhang for a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant.
It was around 3am on February 18, after they arrived at the late-night snack spot Jin Ding Xuan in West Beijing that events began to take a more violent turn. CCTV footage from the restaurant shows Li becoming embroiled in a 'what-are-ya-looking-at' type argument with three other diners at a neighboring table – one that quickly descended into chaos, after the two parties began hurling chairs at one another.
Forced to leave the eatery, Manager Zhang decided to call time on the night’s events. According to the reports, Zhang apparently suggested to Li that he take the girl home – believing that she was now too drunk. The other members of the gang ignored this advice, however, and took a now-visibly inebriated Yang back out onto the road, in search of a suitable hotel.
Yang apparently sobered up a little during the drive and repeatedly pleaded to be released, perhaps sensing the danger. Li, however, was in no mood to let the girl go – he allegedly responded to her requests by hitting her across the face.
The group checked out three hotels in total. The first didn’t have soundproof walls; the other was booked out. The third spot, the Hubei Hotel, appeared to match their requirements. Wei checked into a room with his ID card before sending the room number to his friends in a text message. CCTV footage from the hotel shows Li carrying the girl through the lobby into the elevator, where he was captured hitting the girl again.
What happened in the room itself is perhaps all too easy to picture: Yang refused to undress but surrendered eventually, after suffering more violence from the boys. Li took the lead in having sex with her, followed by Wang and the others. Unsurprisingly, none of the gang used condoms.
It is alleged that Wei and Li later chucked RMB2,000 into Yang's bag, before dumping her alone on the roadside near to the hotel.
Yang later revealed her experience to Manager Zhang, who tried in vain, several times, to contact Li Tianyi and his PLA general father, Li Shuangjiang, hoping to 'fix a deal'. The junior Li claimed the events were a form of prostitution, not rape, while Li Senior simply chose to ignore Zhang’s calls and messages – a decision he likely was to regret later.
Fortunately for Yang, the police proved to be somewhat less disbelieving and unforthcoming. The authorities have now charged Li, along with the four others, for their part in the alleged gang rape. If convicted, the teenager could serve from three to 10 years in prison, although the law does allow for a harsher punishment should the case be considered especially serious.
Li is now forced to defend himself in public in what appears to be a misguided PR offensive, while allowing his lawyer Lan He and mother to do most of his talking. Recently, in an interview with Legal Evening, Lan claimed that media reports have been purposefully 'misleading,' although he refused to comment on whether the details that had been intimately described were true.
On the other hand, Li's mother Meng Ge, who has reportedly already fired two lawyers since the case became public, is now attempting to charge the Global Club’s manager Zhang for 'organizing prostitution.'
In an open letter, Meng claimed that the two girls “persuaded the boys to order as much drink as possible and the Johnnie Walker was a gift from the manager Zhang.” According to her description, Ms Yang's seduced the teenagers in the private room, including her son, by “touching their crotches,” and was taken along in the car only because she begged them to join. Meng also explained Yang was pretending to be drunk in the hotel lobby and that the sex occurred only after she offered “handjobs” to the youngsters.
Meng has also claimed that she has “solid evidence” to back up her charges, which are likely to be revealed in the coming trial. “I have no intention to find excuses for my son. I'm just trying to present the truth,” she said. “If those young men were tricked, I hope the plotters will be punished, so that no more teenagers will be harmed."
Tian Canjun, the victim's lawyer, has denied his client is is a prostitute and said that "she [has] never asked [Li] for money." His client is now "receiving psychological treatment" in Beijing.
The rape charges aren't Li's first ecounter with the law. As a 15-year-old, Li was sentenced to a year in detention in 2011 after he brutally attacked a couple over a minor traffic dispute – he ran them over – and threatened onlookers, foolishly invoking his alleged parental influence (apparently, Li Tianyi has never heard of his namesake Li Gang).
The case continues.
[Editor's Note: In an earlier draft, this article referred to the nightspot Global Club as “exclusive” and “lavishly decorated” – we now accept that it is, in fact, a typical crap Chinese nightclub, and open to anyone with money for a beer. Apologies]
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