Afarmer in Beijing asked for a jail sentence after deliberately committing armed robbery in order to receive free medical treatment in prison for aplastic anemia, according to a Beijing newspaper.
The unidentified man was sentenced to 18 years for robbing an unlicensed taxi driver of his vehicle with a gun in Beijing's Miyun County on December 20, 2007, Beijing Shunyi District People's Court announced early this month.
``Prison will provide free medical treatment for inmates if he or she has no family or the family can not offer medical aid. It is regarded as a criminal's human right,'' the court ruled, according to the report.
The crime occurred just four months after he was sentenced to seven years in jail for robbery by the same court, which ordered the sentence be served outside prison due to his illness, Beijing News reported today.
The 19-year-old man received the first jail term in August 2007. Considering his anemia, a blood disorder, the court ruled he could serve the sentence outside prison since he needed regular blood transfusions. However, he committed another crime during the period, the report said.
According to court documents, the man hired an unlicensed taxi driver on a highway in Miyun County and asked the cabbie to drive to a remote forest in Shunyi District. The man fired a shot to scare the driver into running away. The farmer then stole the vehicle and sold it for 15,000 yuan (US$2,143).
The man allegedly told the newspaper he committed the first robbery in order to collect money for medical expenses and did the second one after learning that medical treatment in prison or detention houses was free for convicts.
He could die anytime if he did not receive timely medical treatment, the newspaper quoted judges as saying.
"The verdict was announced in his ward and the defendant outright confessed his crime, just like last time,'' judges said, according to the report.
The man pleaded for a jail sentence because his life would be in danger if he could not get timely treatment. He allegedly told judges that serving a sentence was equal to saving his life, the newspaper said.
Zhang Yansheng, a senior criminal defense lawyer, told Beijing News that the standards to decide whether a sick convict could serve sentence inside prison or outside prison were vague.
``Usually inmates will receive a physical before being put into prison. If their disease is not suitable to be treated inside prison, they will be ordered to serve the term outside,'' the lawyer was quoted as saying. ``However, it is not rare in China that patients with a serious illness such as cancer still serve their terms in prison.''
The case also put a spotlight on the country's health care system.
"Health care needs improving otherwise more crimes may be committed under the same motive,'' Qu Xuewu, dean of Criminal Law Research Office under the Institute of Law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the newspaper.
