A tale of two defence lawyers: similar challenges and big risks
Zhu Mingyong and Yang Kuangsheng are two lawyers of very different backgrounds, but their remarkably similar tales of challenges, risks and loss when defending clients in Chongqing highlight the difficult path trod by defence lawyers.
By the end of last month, the Chongqing triad crackdown that began a year ago had seen 3,600 people arrested, 1,000 put on trial and 65 sentenced to death or given suspended death penalties. A pet project of the municipality's party secretary, Bo Xilai , the crackdown has earned the rising political star many brownie points, and is still charging ahead, fuelled by public abhorrence of corruption and 'rich baddies'.
Taking up a case under such circumstances would be regarded as career suicide by many, but Zhu and Yang went ahead to defend crime boss Fan Qihang and former police chief Wen Qiang , the highest official to fall from grace.
One a grass-roots lawyer who prides himself in independence, the other a prosecutor-turned-lawyer who works closely with judicial officials - they both described the Chongqing cases as the most difficult in their careers.
Beijing lawyer Zhu made public this week footage and transcripts of his meeting with Fan in a desperate last attempt to save his client, whose life now depends on the outcome of a Supreme People's Court review of his death sentence. In the footage, Fan insisted his innocence, showed ghastly wounds, and said all his confessions were extracted from him through repeated torture over six months.
'When I recorded the meetings, I told myself I would never reveal them, even if Fan is sentenced to a suspended death penalty,' Zhu said, realising that there is risk in such a public expose. 'However, the whole investigation and trial process has been so flawed; I must provide every single piece of information I have now to save Fan's life.'
Theoretically there should not be any risks, since a lawyer is allowed to tape meetings with his client. But there are good reasons for Zhu to worry: the lawyer for Fan's co-defendant, fellow Beijing lawyer Li Zhuang , was controversially accused of coaching his client to claim torture, and was swiftly sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment.