China sentences Chinese-Canadian star Kris Wu to 13 years

ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:13 JST, November 26, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese court on Friday sentenced Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years in prison on charges including rape.

Beijing’s Chaoyang District Court said Wu was given 11 years and 6 months for a 2020 rape, and 1 year and 10 months for the “crime of assembling a crowd to engage in sexual promiscuity” in a 2018 event in which he and others allegedly assaulted two women they had gotten drunk.

The court said the three victims in the rape case had also been drunk and were unable to consent.

It said a combined 13-year sentence was agreed on and Wu would be immediately deported after serving his time.

“According to the facts … the nature, circumstances and harmful consequences of the crime, the court made the above judgment,” the court said in an online statement.

A Canadian diplomat was in court to hear the sentencing, it said.

Wu was also slapped with a fine of 600 million yuan ($83.7 million) for evading taxes by massively underreporting his earnings from performances, advertisements and other sources of income.

The June trial of the 32-year-old former member of the South Korean group EXO was closed to the public to protect the victims’ privacy.

Wu has been detained since August 2021 while police conducted an investigation in response to comments online that he “repeatedly lured young women” to have sex, according to a police statement at that time.

That year, a teenager accused him of having sex with her while she was drunk. Wu, known in Chinese as Wu Yifan, denied the accusation.

The teenager then said seven other women contacted her to say Wu seduced them with promises of jobs and other opportunities. She said some were under 18.

Rape is punishable by three to 10 years in prison, although exceptional cases can result in harsher sentences up to death. The second charge Wu faced is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Wu grew up in Guangzhou in China and in Vancouver, British Columbia.