Li admits guilt in Tong Shao killing

IOWA CITY - A former University of Iowa international student accused of killing his girlfriend in 2014 admitted in a Chinese court this week that he did, but asserted the strangulation was 'impulsive” and asked for leniency.

According to reports by both CNN and the Xinhua News Agency, Xiangnan Li. 24, admitted to killing Tong Shao, 20, who was an international student at Iowa State University. Both are from China, where the murder trial is being held.

According to CNN, Li begged the court for a lenient sentence and said he regretted his 'irrational and impulsive” actions.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that Li placed Shao's body in a suitcase with a dumbbell, but later abandoned a plan of sinking the body in a lake and instead left it in a car trunk.

Prosecutors cited Li's purchase of the suitcase, two dumbbells and the ticket to China before the murder as evidence that the killing was actually premeditated.

At the trial, held in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, Li admitted to killing her after a falling out over her alleged new boyfriend, the news outlets reported. In court, he asserted he was 'deeply in love” with Tong but claimed she was having affairs, CNN reported.

Li is accused of killing Shao on Sept. 7, 2014. The pair checked into a hotel in Nevada, Iowa, on Sept. 5 and Shao was last seen alive at the hotel on Sept. 6.

An autopsy showed she died of suffocation as a result of homicidal violence. The news outlets reporting from the court proceedings reported she had been strangled at the hotel.

Police said Li made arrangements to fly back to China on Sept. 6. Shao was later reported missing and her body was found Sept. 26 outside an Iowa City apartment complex.

Li told the court he bought the plane ticket before Shao's death because he wanted to return to China, CNN reported.

Local authorities investigated the case, but complications arose out of the United States' lack of an extradition treaty with China to bring Li back to be arrested. Li turned himself into law enforcement in Wenzhou on May 13, 2015.

The following June, Chinese officials came to Johnson County, and Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness turned over the case against Li. Later that month, Li was charged in China with intentional homicide.

An attorney for Shao's parents told CNN they accepted 2 million yaun - about $308,000 - in compensation from Li's family before the start of the trial, though that could result in a more lenient sentence.

A small contingent of local officials - two Iowa City police investigators and an assistant Johnson County attorney - traveled to China to observe the proceedings. They were not expected to participate in the trial.

A verdict has not been announced. Li's sentence ranges from 10 years in prison to the death penalty for intentional homicide.