Li Hao

Case overview

Li Hao was convicted of murder, rape, illegal detention, organized prostitution, and spreading pornography for profit. He was sentenced to death. He later was executed.

The offence

Li Hao held six women captive in an underground lair. The women were raped, forced into prostitution, and featured in porn videos. Police said Li coerced the women to kill two others who were held captive alongside them. The women were confined in the lair for periods ranging from two to 21 months.

Li Hao dug a dungeon himself under a basement of a house he had bought in August 2009. Police and court-related reporting described the scheme as involving tricking women into going to his dungeon, including women who had worked at hair salons, karaoke bars, massage parlors, and other venues. Li forced the women to appear in obscene webcasts and forced them to have sex with “customers.”

During their incarceration, he repeatedly raped the women and forced them to have sex with other men for money. Pornographic videos were uploaded to the internet for profit.

Investigation

Police did not raid Li Hao’s home until September 3 after one of the women escaped and a relative talked with police. A police official later apologized for the handling of the case, and reported that four police officers were suspended. The official said community patrols were ineffective and police had lost their sense of responsibility. The official also said entertainment venues, internet cafes, beauty parlors, saunas, and similar places would be more closely examined, and an “online cleansing” effort would target porn websites.

Police indicated that all the women had suffered “inconceivable mental and physical torture.”

Arrest

Li Hao was described as a clerk for Luoyang’s technology supervision bureau when he was arrested in September 2011. He was married and had an eight-month-old son at the time of his arrest.

Trial

The Intermediate People’s Court of Luoyang found Li Hao guilty of murder, rape, organised prostitution, illegal detention, and spreading pornography for profit.

Li Hao was sentenced to death in March 2012 for keeping the women in his cellar and for his role in the murder of two of them. Another account said he was sentenced to death in November 2012.

In one account, the death penalty had been approved by the Supreme People’s Court after a higher court upheld the sentence handed down by the Luoyang Intermediate People’s Court in November 2012.

Li Hao was deprived of his political rights and fined 10,000 yuan ($1,640).

Sentencing

Li Hao’s death sentence was approved by the Supreme People’s Court and he was executed “according to law” after meeting relatives in a detention house in Luoyang, Henan province.

Outcome

Li Hao was executed on January 21, 2014.

Other details

Li Hao was reported as being from Henan province. Multiple reports described his age at the time of sentencing or execution as 35 or 36.

Three of the women held by Li Hao were given leniency for their role in the two murders. One received three years in prison, and two others were put on probation. One account identified a woman’s surname as Duan and stated she was found to have killed both women and sentenced to three years in prison, while the other two were put on probation.

A lawyer in Changsha, Zhang Yan, said she was shocked when hearing of the verdicts. Zhang Yan said she had attempted to represent the women in court but that she had been refused by local authorities. She also said police information indicated that all the women had suffered “inconceivable mental and physical torture.”

A former reporter of the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily, Ji Xuguang, said he had sympathy with the women, while stating he could not comment on the sentences given to them.

CNN reported that Li Hao was in custody as of September 24, 2011.

Guo Congbin, who directed the public security bureau in Luoyang, said: “I beg the people of Luoyang to give us another chance,” and “We will show you the results of our actions.”

Before the case was discovered, one of the women escaped while being taken out to work as a prostitute in September 2011 and led police to the basement. In one report, Chinese authorities said that two women were killed by three of the others on Li’s instructions and were also found guilty of murder, with leniency for the three involved.

One report described Li Hao as having been a former firefighter. Another report described him as having worked for the technological supervision bureau.

Li Hao offered to pay the women for sex if they went home with him, then locked them up and forced them to have sex. In one account, China Central Television reported this sequence, while another account described similar coercion.