Four Chongqing policemen to face trial for alleged torture under Bo Xilai’s crime crackdown
One of the accused says they were simply following orders but actually 'opposed illegal interrogation tactics'
At least four Chongqing police officers will stand trial later this month on accusations of torturing interrogation suspects during the anti-triad crackdown of Bo Xilai’s former right-hand man.
Their cases will be heard at two courts in the municipality, according to an unnamed police source who spoke to the Southern Weekly.
The triad crackdown, launched by then-city party chief Bo, was enforced by former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun, who later turned against his boss and sparked the biggest political scandal in China’s recent history.
The trials mark the first publicly reported re-examination of illegal police practices under the crackdown, which ended in early 2012 with the downfall of Bo and Wang. Previously, evidence of police abuse had been repeatedly presented to the courts during the trials of alleged triads, but they were mostly swept aside.
In one of two cases to be heard by the courts, Changshou district police officers Gou Hongbo, Dan Bo and Zheng Xiaolin were accused of forcing a confession by torturing the chairman of a construction firm, the newspaper said.
Chonqing Daye Concrete Group chairman Lu Jian, who turned himself in for an unspecified crime, was interrogated in the district’s detention centre in the summer of 2011. He said he suffered serious nerve injury on his arms during the ordeal.