Kris Wu Photo: VCG

The original verdict for the charges of rape and organizing group lewdness against Kris Wu Yifan, a Chinese-Canadian pop singer and former member of South Korean boy band EXO, has been upheld in a second trial, with a court finding his crimes "clear, evidence reliable and sufficient." 

On Friday morning, the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court publicly pronounced its judgment on Wu's appeal, upholding the original verdict. 

"The original verdict found [his crime] facts to be clear, the evidence to be reliable and sufficient, the conviction and application of law to be correct, the sentence to be appropriate, and the trial procedure to be legal," the court said. 

Wu filed an appeal after the first trial. In November 2022, the Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing sentenced Wu to 11 years and six months in prison for the crime of rape, with an additional punishment of deportation; and sentenced him to one year and 10 months in prison for the crime of organizing prostitution, with a total sentence of 13 years in prison, along with deportation. 

Wu will be deported from China after he fully serves his prison sentence, China's Ministry of Public Security said Friday.

The Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court stated that Wu went against the will of the women and took advantage of several victims being intoxicated to engage in sexual activities with them, constituting the crime of rape. 

The court said Wu also organized and participated in lewd activities as a principal offender, constituting the crime of organizing prostitution, which should be punished according to law. 

Wu's close relatives and officials from the Canadian Embassy in China attended the second trial as observers.

Wu found himself in hot water in July 2021 after being accused by Du Meizhu, an internet influencer who claimed to be Wu's girlfriend, of luring underage women into having sex by claiming he was recruiting actresses. Later that month, prosecutors from Beijing's Chaoyang district ordered Wu's arrest under rape charges.

In addition to the rape and group lewdness chargers, the star was also fined 600 million yuan ($83.89 million) for evading and underpaying taxes, with the court finding that he evaded individual income tax between 2019 and 2020 by using fictitious business deals to disguise his true income, according to media reports.

Authorities claimed that Wu took advantage of his foreign citizenship and fame to request Chinese companies or Chinese companies' overseas branches to transfer his earnings to foreign-registered companies and depict his earnings made in China as income from overseas to evade tax.

Global Times