China’s ‘spy’ execution sparks fury

Paul Mooney, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 30. 2008 9:30AM UAE / November 30. 2008 5:30AM GMT

BEIJING // Di Chen arrived in Beijing last week aboard a flight from her home in Austria to join her sister, Ran Chen. The homecoming was not a happy one. Their father, Wo Weihan, had been sentenced to death for gathering military and political intelligence for Taiwan, and the two women knew that this could be their last chance to see him.

At 4pm on Thursday, China’s ministry of foreign affairs confirmed that the sisters, who both carry foreign passports, would be able to visit their father the next day.

Family members had been allowed to see Wo on Thursday for about 30 minutes – the first time they had seen him since he was arrested – but Di Chen was not able to be among them.

The sisters waited for a response throughout Friday, making several calls, but got no response. When the phone finally rang about 5pm, the message was not what they had been expecting. The two women were told their father had been executed early that morning, along with Guo Wanjun, 66, an alleged co-conspirator.

International human rights organisations quickly expressed dismay over the executions.

“We had hoped that the Supreme People’s Court, in its review of the case, would recognise that such a severe punishment simply didn’t fit the criminal allegations against Wo Weihan,” said John Kamm, the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation. “We don’t see how this case meets the threshold of ‘extremely serious or heinous crimes that lead to grave social consequences’ that China has set for capital cases.”

Ran Chen and Di Chen expressed their deep anguish over the sudden and unannounced execution of their father. “The entire process – from arrest to execution – was conducted in a way that was degrading to both my father and our family,” they said in a statement. “We were all misled, led to have false hope, denied the fundamental right to be informed, and forced to suffer.”

The execution raised several questions about China’s fledgling judicial system and the death penalty at a time when legal experts have been patting the country on the back for attempting to carry out a far-reaching reform of the system.

The prosecution alleged that Wo, who was detained in March 2005, gave Taiwan’s intelligence analysts top-secret military intelligence, some of which appeared to be little more than photocopies of publications available in the library of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was also accused of providing details to Taiwan regarding the health of a senior Communist Party official.

As his case involved alleged state secrets, it was a closed trial. Wo was sentenced to death on May 27 2007. He then lodged an appeal with the Supreme People’s Court, which supported the original ruling.

Human rights workers say the case was full of irregularities because it involved state secrets.

“The Wo case was riddled from the beginning with a critical lack of transparency and due process,” said Phelim Kine, an Asian researcher with Human Rights Watch Asia, which is based in the United States.

“This case highlights some of the leading deficiencies in the Chinese legal system.”

Joshua Rosenzweig, a senior manager for research for the Dui Hua Foundation, said Wo was detained for 10 months without access to a lawyer or to evidence that was being used against him. “Procedural problems are commonplace in the Chinese legal system,” he said.

It is also believed that Wo was mistreated during this period and forced to make a confession under duress without access to a lawyer. It is believed that he later attempted to recant his confession, but that his request was refused, according to Mr Kine and Mr Rosenzweig.

“The use of pressure tactics and outright torture by the police to derive confessions is rampant in China,” Mr Kine said.

Meanwhile, Wo’s family and lawyers had little or no access to evidence that was used in the trial.

“Any case dealing with state secrets becomes a black box in which a person can disappear,” Mr Kine said. “Wo entered that black box and it consumed him.”

According to the Dui Hua Foundation, there are 68 types of crimes in China that can be punished by the death penalty, including such non-violent crimes as official corruption and drug trafficking.

Beijing claims the number of death sentences fell by 30 per cent in 2007 compared with 2006, as the authority over the review of all capital cases was restored to the Supreme People’s Court in Jan 2007. Although the number of people executed each year is a state secret, it is believed China executes more people each year than any other country. Dui Hua estimates that there were as many as 6,000 people executed in 2007.

The statement by Wo’s daughters said that because he was not aware he would be executed less than 24 hours later, there was no opportunity to say goodbye to his family or to say any final words.

The daughters said they were “deeply shocked, saddened, disappointed and outraged”, by what happened.

“Throughout these four years since our father’s arrest, the family was kept in the dark. After Thursday, we were led to believe that we could see our father one more time. The execution was carried out in secrecy while we hoped.

“My father was put to death, so was our hope in the Chinese justice system.”



pmooney@thenational.ae’