Justice demanded after official dies in custody
The family of a former government official is demanding justice after he died in mysterious circumstances in the custody of prosecutors in Ganyu county, Jiangsu province .
Liang Jiping , 45, the former deputy director of the county's Power Supply Bureau and the general manager of a bureau-owned property management company, died on June 1 after four days in custody.
He was being held by the Ganyu County Procuratorate in connection with what was believed to be an investigation into corruption.
The Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis News quoted Liang's wife, Wang Yundi , as saying that after a month of petitioning, the Nanjing Intermediate People's Procuratorate had been brought in to look into her husband's death.
The case is the latest in a string of deaths in custody on the mainland underscoring a lack of supervision and transparency within the judicial system. The cases have also fuelled widespread suspicion of forced confessions.
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' law professor Liu Renwen said it was difficult to say if forced confessions were widespread on the mainland, but the case did expose a fault in the judicial system.
Professor Liu said deaths of suspects in the hands of prosecutors were unheard of in other countries and only happened on the mainland because prosecutors had the dual role in criminal proceedings of collecting evidence and laying charges.
'And if they're allowed to continue to take on both roles, they will compromise their credibility as representatives of the state,' he said.
Photos posted online show Liang's body covered with bruises and Ms Wang said she had been told that an autopsy by provincial police coroners found that her husband had died from external trauma, and not a heart attack as a county hospital had concluded earlier.
Ms Wang said she once had a very loving family and 'I want the truth, and the perpetrators to be punished', the report said.
