AUSTRALIA. DEADLOCK OVER CHINA DEATH PENALTY

it was reported that a man suspected of murdering a Chinese student and leaving her body to rot for six months in a Canberra apartment could get away with the crime because Australian authorities were refusing to help the investigation, fearing he could be sentenced to death. The parents of 25-year-old Zhang Hongjie had called on the Howard Government to co-operate with China so their daughter's killer could face an executioner.
"I am calling on the two governments to co-operate with each other and give the deserved punishment," said the girl's father Zhang Defa, speaking on the anniversary of his daughter's death. "They should not be fussing around with the details and hindering the resolution of this affair."
Mr Zhang's lawyer Chris Zhu said: "Both Chinese law and Chinese tradition say that the murderer should pay with his life."
Australia had already ruled out trying to bring back to Australia the prime suspect, the girl's 24-year-old fellow student and boyfriend Zhang Long, because "it is very clear that (China) simply would not accede to that request", said a spokesman for Justice Minister Chris Ellison.
The two governments were understood to be deadlocked in sensitive secret negotiations over the case.
The minister's spokesman said that while Australia would do "whatever it can" to help bring the killer to justice, "the assistance the Australian Government can provide is limited unless China is able to provide the undertaking that the death penalty won't be imposed or carried out".
No such undertaking had yet been made. Because of its opposition to the death penalty, Australia has no extradition treaty with China. The practice has been to co-operate in the repatriation of people accused of serious crimes only if China gives a written guarantee they won't be executed.
The body of Zhang Hongjie, a communications student at the University of Canberra who had been in Australia since 2000, lay for six months in the Belconnen apartment she shared with her boyfriend until January 2005, when police were called by neighbours complaining of a foul smell. Mr Zhang said the killer had doused the body with perfume and insecticide and wrapped it in a rug before locking the apartment and fleeing to China. He was reported to have given himself up to police at the urging of his family in his home city of Dalian, a northern Chinese port, on March 3, after the Australian Federal Police issued an international warrant for his arrest.