We Don’t Want Your Blood Money

New Zealand First is concerned that once again a local judge has accepted Asian “blood money” and reduced the sentence for a Chinese student who was the ringleader of an extortion gang.

The trial took place in the Hamilton District Court where Judge Neil McLean reduced the jail term of Yiyu Zhang (23) from 14 years to 10 1/2 years because his family offered his victims more than $60,000 in reparation.

Zhang pleaded guilty to 39 charges including kidnapping, aggravated robbery and demanding with menaces.

Law and order spokesperson Ron Mark said that the judge was sending the wrong signal to foreign offenders who were buying lighter sentences through belated compensation to victims they had harmed.

“In view of the serious nature of the crime, this offender should have been locked up for a very long time and he should not have been permitted to buy a lighter sentence.

“Under Labour, the New Zealand justice system is obviously deteriorating into a Third World arrangement in which offenders buy lower sentences. What happens to cases involving New Zealanders who cannot afford to buy off victims they have harmed?”

Mr Mark said it was the second time an Asian student had paid “blood money” for a serious crime and that most New Zealanders found the practice abhorrent.

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