An elephant that crushed his keeper at a Chinese zoo to death has been declared innocent because of mitigating circumstance.
Hu Tianmin was cleaning the elephant house at the zoo in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, in August when five-tonne male Asian elephant Zhongbo lifted him up, threw him tothe ground and stamped on him.
Zoo officials said it was the mating season and the elephant was possibly suffering from sunstroke at the time, which made it irritable.
