S
Sun Jian
Guest
11 June 2010 - 08H39
Chinese man convicted for selling son on Internet
A man shields a woman and child from the rain in Beijing. A court in China has given a 22-year-old man a suspended jail sentence for selling his toddler son on the Internet for 18,000 yuan (2,650 dollars), state press reported Friday.
AFP - A court in China has given a 22-year-old man a suspended jail sentence for selling his toddler son on the Internet for 18,000 yuan (2,650 dollars), state press reported Friday. The man from the central province of Hubei sold his two-year-old son to a Beijing couple in April last year after advertising the child online, the Beijing Times reported.
The unmarried Lu sold the child after he split up with the boy's mother and decided he did not have the time or money to raise him, the report said. But after regretting the sale and reuniting with the mother, Lu in June last year accused the Beijing couple of child trafficking and demanded the police return the boy to him when they refused to surrender custody.
Following an investigation and trial, the Beijing court convicted Lu on Thursday of abandoning his child and meted out a six-month suspended sentence with one year of probation. The Beijing couple were found not to have committed any wrongdoing, as Lu had admitted he lacked the means to raise the child and they were willing to raise it, it said. Judicial authorities ordered the child be returned to Lu, while the 18,000 yuan was confiscated by the court, it said.
