WASHINGTON — Iowa City police have identified a Chinese national as a “person of interest” in the slaying of an Iowa State University student last month, but the individual, if charged, may never be brought to justice in this country.
That is because the United States and China do not have an extradition treaty, and a Chinese national who commits a crime on American soil, and subsequently returns to his home country, might never be brought back to be tried in the U.S.
Police found Tong Shao’s body in the trunk of a Toyota Camry in Iowa City last month and believe the person of interest, Xiangnan Li, 23, a University of Iowa student, has returned to China. The victim was also Chinese.
“As a matter of international law, you don’t need a treaty to extradite,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at Northwestern University. But he said countries without treaties are generally reluctant to hand over suspects in crimes committed in other lands.
Yet it has happened. The U.S. Department of Justice says both countries have, on occasion, returned fugitives who were also subject to deportation under respective immigration laws.
A case between Canada and China shows how complicated the criminal procedure can be without an extradition treaty.
In 2002, the body of a Chinese exchange student, Amanda Zhao, was found inside a suitcase near Burnaby, British Columbia. Zhao’s boyfriend, Jia-ming Li, who was eventually charged with murder in absentia by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, fled to China days after the victim’s body was discovered.
RCMP officials eventually gave their evidence to Chinese investigators after China refused to return Li to be tried in Canada. A Chinese court convicted Li of “intentional homicide” in 2012, sentencing him to life in prison. The sentence was later overturned by the Beijing Supreme People’s Court, citing insubstantial evidence for a first-degree murder charge. Li is scheduled to be released in 2016.
While the U.S. has never had an extradition treaty with China, it holds agreements with 109 other countries. Among these treaties is an agreement with Hong Kong, a former British colony which became a part of China in 1997.
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