A Chinese student was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for murdering the girlfriend who jilted him for another man.
Kai Ji, 23, was found guilty of murder after running down Zhi Ping You, a 22-year-old language student from Beijing, in her own car, then deliberately driving over her body at least
once, as she lay bleeding and dazed on the Port Hills near Christchurch.
Ms You crawled several metres from where she had been run over and finally bled to death from pelvic injuries three hours later, by which time Ji had tried to stage the killing as an accident and had sought help from passers-by.
Unknown to the jury, Ji had confessed to intending to murder Ms You when he made a statement to police the day after the murder on September 23, 2002.
But that part of the statement was not put before the jury after the defence had successfully challenged its admissibility.
Justice John Hansen imposed the mandatory life sentence on Ji, who must serve a minimum of 10 years in jail.
- NZPA
