Comment on Brother seeks retrial for China ex-police chief facing death

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press, San Antonio Express-News: World
Sun, 03/26/2017 - 6:52pm

Brother seeks retrial for China ex-police chief facing death

Yet Zhao's brother is now questioning the verdict, saying the ex-official was abused in police custody and sentenced in a show trial — raising issues of justice that are rarely aired in politically sensitive, often tightly scripted cases. China's highest court, the Supreme People's Court, is now reviewing his death sentence, as it does for all capital punishment cases. Zhao's brother has written a detailed letter appealing for a fair trial and submitted it to the court through its "letters and petitions" department, the office that is designated to hear citizens' complaints. The court also said Zhao, who rose through the ranks of the police in the sparsely populated but resource-rich region over a three-decade career, used his leadership position from 2008 to 2010 to "seek benefits" when promoting people and taking 24 million yuan ($3.5 million) in bribes. The Supreme People's Court, the two courts in Shanxi province where the case was tried, and police and prosecutors in Chifeng, where Zhao was interrogated, did not respond to repeated requests for comment sent by fax and phone. In recent months, Chinese activists have been drawing attention to the plight of a rights lawyer, Xie Yang, who told his attorneys that he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, punched, kicked and otherwise tortured during interrogations. Interrogators find it easy to sidestep government requirements aimed at curbing abuse because the police, prosecutors and judiciary are ultimately controlled by the Communist Party. [...] while the torture of ordinary people in police custody might trigger an outcry, there is little public sympathy for officials subjected to the same practices, part of a widespread perception that officials enjoy better treatment by police than ordinary suspects.

 

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