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SCMP Reporter

About 600 advocates are demanding that he be found innocent on all charges

Zhang Jianzhong, a high-profile Beijing lawyer who defended senior officials in corruption trials, has been jailed for two years for falsifying evidence

News of the verdict and sentence has been greeted with dismay in legal circles in the capital.

'The verdict has disappointed a lot of lawyers who are watching the case closely across the country,' said Zhang Yansheng, a lawyer with the Beijing Dayu Law Office.

Zhang Jianzhong, who is best known for defending Cheng Kejie,  the highest ranking Chinese official convicted of corruption, was found guilty of helping Huo Haiyin, former manager of the Beijing Urban Co-operative Bank, to falsify evidence in his trial by forging the date on documents.

Huo was sentenced to death for corruption in December last year.

Zhang's sentence shocked about 600 lawyers, who signed a petition handed to the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme Court of China demanding that Zhang be found innocent of all charges.

The petition said the evidence against Zhang had been investigated by six top legal experts and criminal lawyers who had 'emphatically' concluded that he was innocent of all charges.

Zhang was arrested in May last year and has been in custody ever since, following the refusal of frequent applications for bail.

Zhang's wife, Meng Baojun, said  her husband would appeal against the verdict.

'I believe my husband is not guilty,' she said. 'Just as all the hundreds of lawyers who signed the petition on his behalf believe.'

She said her husband was arrested and charged under clause 306 of the Criminal Law of China, which singles out lawyers found guilty of falsifying evidence for particularly stiff penalties.

Although, in the end, Zhang was sentenced under another clause and the maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment was not handed down, criminal lawyers believe the verdict and sentence will still have a negative impact on the criminal law system. 'Zhang Jianzhong is one of the most famous criminal defence lawyers in the country,' said Dayu's Zhang Yansheng. 'If he can be imprisoned despite the support of the entire legal community, no lawyer will feel safe.'

Ms Zhang added that since the Criminal Law was amended to include clause 306 in 1997, official statistics had revealed that the number of lawyers willing to take criminal cases has dropped dramatically.



Beijing lawyer's two-year prison sentence is greeted with dismay