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Fake tiger photographer returns home after sentence

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-11-18 14:43

XI'AN  -- The farmer found guilty of faking photographs of an endangered tiger was returning home after a court handed down a suspended sentence as a result of appeal.

Zhou Zhenglong, photo-faker of the endangered South China tiger, is on trial in the Xunyang County People's Court of northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Sept. 27, 2008. [Xinhua]

Zhou Zhenglong, who had been in custody for two months, left Xunyang County Detention Center, Shaanxi Province, at about 11 a.m. Tuesday for home.

"I'm so happy to be able to return home," said Zhou.

It will takes him about five hours to get home to Zhenping County.

Zhou was sentenced on Monday night to two and a half years in prison with a three-year reprieve by a court of justice in Shaanxi.

"I want to thank the court for giving me a lighter sentence," the farmer said in court Monday night.

In the next three years, he will be under police supervision.

The Intermediate People's Court of Ankang City also fined Zhou Zhenglong 2,000 yuan (about 292 US dollars) for fraud and illegally owning 93 military bullets.

The court also ordered him to return a 20,000-yuan reward to the provincial forestry department.

The court said Zhou's motive was to swindle the reward and he was clear that individuals were forbidden to own ammunition. But the court handed down a lighter sentence because he confessed his crimes.

Zhou was initially sentenced on September 27 at the People's Court in Xunyang County. According to the first ruling, the 54-year-old was given two and a half years in prison, a 2,000 yuan fine and was ordered to return the reward.

Zhou appealed the ruling on October 8.

Zhou faked pictures of a South China tiger last year. It is a subspecies that is believed extinct in the wild in China.

The provincial forestry department announced Zhou's "discovery" to the public in October 2007, and gave him a 20,000-yuan reward.

Doubts mounted on the Internet after netizens found an old Lunar New Year poster showing a tiger that looked exactly the same as Zhou's photo.

Police arrested Zhou in June after seizing an old tiger poster, which Zhou allegedly used to produce his photos. They also found a wooden model of a tiger paw and 93 bullets in his home.

A spokesman with the Shaanxi provincial government said in June that Zhou had used the wooden cat's paw to fabricate tigers' footprints in the snow.

The provincial government announced in late June that Zhou's tiger photos were fabricated.

Zhou's defense lawyers claimed outside the court after the first court hearing that it was not Zhou who was solely responsible for the bad publicity generated by the case, saying the "cursory release of the news by relevant departments" helped promote the fraud.

A total of 13 government staff in Shaanxi were sacked or reprimanded as a result of the case.

Li Qian, a junior wildlife preservation official in Zhou's home county of Zhenping was sacked for failing to conduct a site survey to prove the tiger photos genuine, said a spokesman with the provincial department of supervision.

The spokesman said Li also fabricated a survey report and was therefore directly responsible for the government's cursory release of Zhou's "discovery".

The case also led to the sackings of Zhenping County's forestry chief Qin Dapeng, who failed to find holes in Li's report and trade chief Xie Kunyuan, who provided cameras and films to Zhou and helped Zhou develop the fake tiger photos.

Four officials from the provincial forestry department were also removed, including two deputy chiefs.