Beijing No 3 Intermediate People’s Court announced on Friday that it upheld the original verdict for the charges against the 33-year-old Chinese-Canadian hip-hop star.
“The original ruling found the facts to be clear, the evidence to be solid and sufficient, the conviction and application of laws to be correct, the sentence to be appropriate, and the trial procedure to be lawful,” the court said.
The Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing sentenced Wu to 13 years in jail for rape and “group lewdness” in November last year and for the Canadian citizen to be deported after serving his time.
Wu filed an appeal after the trial and appeared in court for the appeal hearing in July.
But the Beijing No 3 Intermediate People’s Court upheld the verdict, saying Wu took advantage of his victims while they were drunk.
Wu, once one of China’s most influential pop stars, was detained in July 2021 after a series of women, some of them underage, posted accusations against him online.
The process began when Du Meizhu, a beauty influencer, waived her anonymity and posted on the social media platform Weibo that Wu had date-raped her when she was drunk.
After the verdict announcement on Friday, Du said in her latest Weibo post that she only wanted to “put an end” to the incident as soon as possible, and said Wu’s fans had been cyberbullying her since she first came forward.
A statement said to come from Wu’s mother was later posted to a Weibo account named @20XXCLUB, the official account of the Tianjin Fanshi Culture Media, according to Chinese media reports.
According to the Chinese corporate data provider Qichacha, Wu’s cousin is the account’s legal representative.
The person who wrote the statement said they could not accept the verdict, adding: “I believe in Chinese law, and even if the second trial is over, I will still appeal for my son.”
Chinese-Canadian rapper Kris Wu appeals against rape sentence
Chinese-Canadian rapper Kris Wu appeals against rape sentence
The statement was later deleted and some pictures related to the statement also appeared to be censored on Weibo.
The Beijing No 3 Intermediate People’s Court said close family members and officials from the Canadian embassy in Beijing had attended the appeal.
Wu was also fined 600 million yuan (US$84 million) for tax evasion last November, with the tax authorities saying Wu used his Canadian nationality to ask companies to pay for work he had done in mainland China through foreign firms, disguising his domestic income.
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Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years in prison for sex crimes in China
Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years in prison for sex crimes in China
Wu was born in Guangzhou but moved to Canada at the age of 10. He later rose to fame as a member of the K-pop boy band EXO.
