The widow of a deputy mayor who petitioned the Ministry of Public Security over her husband's death was taken away by plain-clothes police in Beijing on Tuesday night, several hours after her third press conference to publicise the case. Liu Yuehong, the wife of Wugang deputy mayor Yang Kuansheng, escaped the watch of authorities in Hunan and held press conferences in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Beijing from December 20 to challenge the police investigation into her husband's death. Yang's body was found lying outside a government dormitory on November 26. Hunan police said he leapt to his death because he was depressed, but Liu, a surgeon in a neighbouring city, insists that he was murdered. The case underscores the murky world of provincial politics and the difficulty and dangers individuals face when taking on the government. Liu's lawyer said they had appealed to the Ministry of Public Security to launch another investigation. Liu, Yang's brother-in-law and a family friend were taken away from their Beijing hotel and placed under arrest on Tuesday night. The brother-in-law told the South China Morning Post yesterday that they would be sent back to Hunan. Liu pointed to 19 suspicious aspects of the police investigation, which she described as 'full of contradictions'. At Tuesday's press conference, a top physician and a medical lawyer were on hand to testify against the police investigation. Coroner Liu Liang from the Forensic Medicine Association said he found blood leakage that was found in some murder cases. He found different types of fractures in three of Yang's ribs which were caused by external forces, rather than a fall. Zhuo Xiaoqin, a lawyer from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, questioned whether Yang was conscious enough to leap to his death after bleeding heavily from deep knife cuts to his left wrist and neck. Hunan police said Yang jumped to his death after failing to kill himself with scissors, fruit knives and meat cleavers. 'Both the investigation report and autopsy didn't mention Yang's blood loss,' Zhuo said. 'We have seen blood stains in the room from pictures of the family. I doubt Yang was conscious enough to jump to his death if he had lost more than 1?litres of blood.' The widow believes Yang was beaten and then thrown from the dormitory. On December 25, Hunan police said they seized more than 210,000 yuan (HK$238,000) from Yang's dormitory in 48 red envelopes. The family insist the money was planted in an attempt to implicate Yang in wrongdoing. Liu insisted her husband had not committed suicide. He called her a day before his death and said his life was in danger, and he also denied any involvement in corruption.
