Doing quarrying projects, in order to save money, he even took gunpowder from firecrackers and made his own explosives to blow up mountain quarrying. A few days ago, after a public prosecution initiated by the Yanggu County Procuratorate of Shandong Province, the Yanggu County Court sentenced the defendants Li Zhenguo, Guo Xin, Daniel Zhang, and Wang Jifei to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from seven to nine years for the crime of illegally manufacturing, transporting, and storing explosives, and sentenced Wang Guilan, who was hired to peel explosives, and 12 other defendants, who were hired to peel explosives, to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from two to three years, and a suspended sentence was applied. Chen Xiaoping, the four defendants who used firecracker explosives and fertilizers to synthesize explosives, were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from one to three years for the crime of illegal manufacture of explosives, and suspended sentences were applied.
Keep an eye on the gunpowder in the firecrackers for the sake of the mountain
In June 2017, Li Zhenguo, Wang Jifei, Daniel Zhang, Guo Xin and others partnered to run a company to do the business of blowing up mountain quarrying, and later Li Zhenguo received the quarrying project in Shandong, in order to save costs, 4 people discussed using gunpowder to blow up the mountain.
In July 2017, Li Zhenguo contacted Pan Liying, a villager in Zhangqiu Town, Yanggu County, and asked her to help buy a large number of double-fired firecrackers in the local area. Pan Liying knew that Li Zhenguo was used for blasting and quarrying work, and agreed. Subsequently, Pan Liying bought 50 boxes of firecrackers for the first time, and Li Zhenguo paid an additional 1,000 yuan to Pan Liying in addition to paying the fee in full. Li Zhenguo also asked Pan Liying to help find someone to peel the gunpowder from the firecrackers and pay a "processing fee" of 70 yuan per box, Pan Liying found a friend Wang Qin, and the two found a nearby villager friend and commissioned the stripping of gunpowder at a price of 50 yuan per box. Wang Guilan, Wei Jie, and others considered that there was no agricultural work in the field at that time, so they took over the work of stripping gunpowder. Until a large number of firecracker barrels were found by the masses, anonymously called the police, the case occurred. When the public security organs seized it, Pan Liying had already bought 210 boxes of firecrackers, and Wang Guilan and others only had a few boxes left uncut. The rest of the stripped gunpowder has been transported away by Wang Jifei and Daniel Zhang, and Chen Xiaoping used firecracker gunpowder, fertilizer and other raw materials to make explosives for blasting mountain quarrying.
Change of compulsory measures for the elderly with less subjective malignancy
In March 2018, after the case entered the review and prosecution stage, Wang Guilan and other elderly suspects cried to the resident procurator of the Yanggu County Procuratorate during their detention: "I didn't know that peeling gunpowder was a crime, so I thought of earning money to buy some snacks for my granddaughter, and now I regret dying!" ”
According to the procurator's analysis, although the statutory sentence of Wang Guilan and the other 12 suspects is relatively high, their subjective malignancy is not large, they have not caused serious consequences, and the social harm is small. They engaged in firecracker stripping, obtained limited profits, and played an auxiliary role in the joint crime. Based on this, the Yanggu County Procuratorate implemented the criminal policy of "blending leniency with severity", grasped the organic unity of legal effects and social effects, and proposed changes to compulsory measures for Wang Guilan and others, which were finally adopted.
Whether stripping gunpowder from firecrackers is the manufacture of explosives
After all case-handling work was completed, the procurator reviewed and held that the defendants Li Zhenguo, Guo Xin, Daniel Zhang, and Wang Jifei hired others to strip gunpowder from firecrackers and then make them into explosive devices for use in mountain quarrying, which constituted the crime of illegally manufacturing, transporting, and storing explosives. But Wang Guilan and other villagers are engaged in the labor service activity of stripping gunpowder from firecrackers, is this kind of behavior "manufacturing" explosives?
Prosecutors went through the material in multiple directions, "manufacturing," which was interpreted in the dictionary as processing raw materials into applicable products. In this case, Pan Liying, Wang Guilan and others carried out or instigated others to peel gunpowder in order to obtain gunpowder. One view is that this process is the physical transfer process of pyrotechnic powder, not the manufacturing process; the other view is that the process is that the defendant used firecrackers as raw materials and obtained pyrotechnic powder through tool processing, which belongs to the manufacturing process. The prosecutor agrees with the second view that the Criminal Law criminalizes the illegal manufacture of pyrotechnic powder exceeding three kilograms, and stipulates that in the crime of endangering public safety in Chapter II of The Criminal Code, it is considered that it is considerable in the production process of pyrotechnic powder, which is very easy to cause explosion accidents, thereby endangering public safety. In this case, the defendant's process of obtaining pyrotechnic powder through the processing of firecrackers was as dangerous as the process of obtaining pyrotechnic powder through the processing of raw materials, and it was very easy to cause public safety accidents, so the process should be regarded as a "manufacturing" process.
After the case was discussed by the joint meeting of procurators and deliberated by the Yanggu County Procuratorate's Procuratorial Committee, in April 2018, the Yanggu County Procuratorate indicted the defendants Daniel Zhang and Wang Jifei on suspicion of illegally manufacturing, transporting, and storing explosives, and Wang Guilan, Wei Jie, and others on suspicion of illegally manufacturing explosives. At the same time, it also guides the Yanggu County Public Security Bureau to continue to investigate the case, dig deep into other co-defendants, increase the arrest of Guo Xin, Li Zhenguo, and other fugitive defendants, and urge them to arrive at the case as soon as possible.
After the Yanggu County Public Security Bureau launched a strong investigation, Guo Xin, Li Zhenguo, and Chen Xiaoping and the defendants in the same case appeared in May 2018, April 2019, and November 2020 respectively, and were prosecuted by the Yanggu County Procuratorate in accordance with the law, and the county court adopted the procuratorate's opinions when hearing them.
Because Wang Guilan, Wei Jie, and 12 other defendants who were hired to peel gunpowder voluntarily admitted guilt and accepted punishment, played a secondary and auxiliary role in the joint crime, were accessories, and were after the trial to pay all the illegal gains, and had the circumstances of voluntary surrender, considering the role played by each defendant in the entire course of the crime and their motives for committing the crime, comprehensively considering them in accordance with the principle of proportionality between crime and punishment, and after requesting instructions from the higher court, the above-mentioned defendants were all sentenced and punished below the statutory sentence.
(The people involved in the case are pseudonyms)
Source: Procuratorial Daily Lu Jinzeng Jia Wei Pan Xiaoning