Crime gang suspects reverse confessions

The trials of Chongqing underworld suspects, the subjects of a recent crackdown, got off to a turbulent start, with an alleged gang boss and eight co-defendants reversing their confessions and denying involvement in organised crime.

Yang Tianqing was the first suspected gang boss to go on trial since the triad sweep started in June. Yang faces seven charges ranging from murder and blackmail to illegal possession of firearms.

The biggest bone of contention is whether the nine were in a triad group headed by Yang.

Yang argued that they did not have enough money to sustain a triad group. Other gang members said they barely knew each other before their arrest, and one said he was forced to confess. The two most repeated phrases in Chonqging No1 Intermediate People's Court on Monday were, 'This is not true', and 'I don't know'.

Asked about the killing of an entertainment boss, Liang Yiping, on June 26 - after the police crackdown campaign began - Yang said he only ordered his subordinates to chop Liang and did not mean to kill him. Liang was found soaked in blood with 15 knife wounds.

'Because the case is so complicated, I urge the court to retry the case,' Yang said at the end of the hearing at about 5pm. He said there was 'someone bigger' who was responsible for the killing.

At the same time, in Court No3, alleged gang boss Liu Zhongyong only admitted to illegal mining and paying off the family of the three workers killed when a mine he operated collapsed. He said he was not a gang boss. Nobody called him that. Instead, people just addressed him using his name.