Man urges Chinese judge to reject torture-tainted evidence
A Chinese Australian writer tried in Beijing for alleged espionage said he pleaded to a judge to reject evidence of what he had said while being tortured by interrogators.
Yang Hengjun faced a closed trial last Thursday and the
court deferred its verdict to a later date.
The Australian government on Friday labeled his
incarceration since he arrived in China in January 2019 arbitrary detention.
The Associated Press on Monday saw the crime novelist and
blogger’s account of the legal proceedings circulated among his supporters over
the weekend.
Yang said he had a meeting with his trial judge three days
before his one-day trial. The judge refused his request to submit evidence and
call witnesses during the trial, but agreed to include almost 100 pages of
defense documents in his case file.
“I made a plea to the judge to exclude my interrogation
records from the court proceedings,” Yang said.
“It’s illegal. Torture They had hidden camera records,” Yang
added.
Yang does not say how the judge responded to his request.
Chinese Criminal Procedure Law prohibits confessions forced
by torture or threats.
The prosecution case, “according to legal facts, is
groundless,” Yang said.
Yang said he was “tired and confused” during the hearing and
“didn’t have the sprit to speak enough.”
He estimated he spoke for less than five minutes in his own
defense, but said the hearing “gave me a sense that things are OK.”
“The interrogations I had been subjected to, where I was
told I had to confess, and the treatment I received for the first
one-and-a-half years was (sic) much worse,” Yang said.
Chinese authorities have not released any details of the
charges against Yang, who reportedly formerly worked for China’s Ministry of
State Security as an intelligence agent.
Yang told his supporters at the weekend: “I served China
when I was young, even secretly.”
Yang has denied the accusation against him, and while a
conviction is virtually certain, it isn’t clear when the verdict will be handed
down. The espionage charge carries penalties ranging from three years in prison
to the death penalty.
The trial comes at a time of deteriorating relations between
the countries, brought on by Chinese retaliation against Australian legislation
against foreign involvement in its domestic politics, the exclusion of
telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G phone network, and calls for an
independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus that was first
detected in China in late 2019.
Comments
Post a Comment