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The two new lawyers for a suspect involved in a gang rape case that has attracted nationwide attention said they would plea for innocence for their client, Beijing News reported on Thursday.

Li Tianyi(L) and his father Li Shuangjiang.[File photo]

Xue Zhenyuan, the former lawyer for the suspect, surnamed Li, quit last month but declined to give a specific reason.

Xu quit because the suspect’s mother asked him to release a statement saying Li was not involved in the rape, according to a source close to the case.

Li, the son of Li Shuangjiang, was accused of gang raping a girl with four other males at a hotel in Beijing in February and was detained days later.

The police refused to disclose details of the case, including the names of the suspects, saying four of them were minors.

Li Shuangjiang, who is the dean of the music department of the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Arts, is most known for his renditions of patriotic songs.

His son, however, has created controversy in recent years due to his unruly behavior.

The 17-year-old and another teenager attacked a couple who allegedly blocked their driveway near the entrance of a residential community in Beijing two years ago. He was later sent to a government correctional facility for one year.

The mayor of Hezhou city in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Tuesday apologized to residents for a river pollution case in a public statement.

A mining company discharges sewage directly into Haodong River, a branch of Hejiang River, on July 9. [Photo/Xinhua]

Bai Xi said in the written apology that loopholes in his government’s environmental protection and management work have led to river contamination.

He said he and his government felt sorry that the river pollution not only does harm to the city’s reputation, but also causes losses and inconvenience for local residents.

Bai added that he has also apologized to residents whose lives were affected by the polluted river in neighboring cities and counties.

The pollution was discovered after local authorities in Fengkai County in Guangdong Province, which neighbors Guangxi, said on Saturday that water in a section of the Hejiang River had been tainted by upstream pollution.

The county warned local tap water plants and residents living in the lower reaches of the Hejiang and Xijiang rivers to avoid drinking water or consuming products derived from the river.

Cadmium and thallium levels at a reservoir located on the river were four times and 1.3 times the recommended level, respectively, as of Monday, according to Yang Zhongxiong, vice head of Hezhou’s environmental protection bureau.

All 61 workers who hid on a mountain in southern Russia for more than two days after a employment dispute have been transfered from the mountain in Kemerovo and properly settled on Friday after efforts from government departments of Heilongjiang province and the Chinese embassy in Russia, local publicity department said Sunday.

According to media reports, the workers are staying at a local church and are in good condition, and efforts are under way to send them back to China, .

The construction company that employs them is cooperating with government officials from China and diplomats from the Chinese embassy in Russia to investigate the dispute, an employee at the construction company who gave her name as Zhou said.

The incident attracted public attention after an online post said that about 200 migrant workers from Suihua, in Heilongjiang province, which borders Russia, were abused at a construction project in Russia and did not receive the wages they were promised. They also feared for their safety and were forced to flee to the mountain to seek refuge, it said.

Online photos showed workers wearing thick clothes and sitting on mud in a forest.

Authorities have not confirmed the reason the workers fled, but family members in Xichangfa township, Suihua, said they did not receive the salaries they were promised.

Wang Xibo, 63, of Dongbeiyi village, in Xichangfa township, said his nephew, Zhang Wanchun, was one of the workers who was trapped in Russia.

Wang said Zhang, a carpenter, went to Russia in April for work at the suggestion of a construction contractor in the province’s Hegang.

“The contractor promised Zhang that he could earn 20,000 yuan a month ($3,200), and some of Zhang’s relatives also followed him to Russia,” Wang said. “But nearly three months have passed, and they haven’t got any pay.”

(China Daily contributed to this story)