China’s supreme court forced to admit it lost documents in long-running contract dispute
- Supreme Court of China starts investigation after popular blogger reports that papers went missing two years ago
- Judge involved in case said the documents were taken from his office and suggested the CCTV cameras had been sabotaged
The Supreme Court of China said on Saturday it had started an investigation into the disappearance of a series of case documents relating to a high-profile contract dispute between two mining companies.
The loss of the documents, which took place in late 2016, did not come to public attention until prominent former television host Cui Yongyuan revealed it on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo in a series of posts over the last week.
On Sunday, a video recording of a man believed to be Wang Linqing, the judge who presided over the dispute between a private and state-owned firm was leaked to a financial newspaper.
In the recording, he said he had stored the documents in his office, and also hinted that the closed circuit TV cameras had been sabotaged when the documents disappeared.
Following an initial denial on Thursday, the Supreme People’s Court issued a statement on Saturday night acknowledging the disappearance of the documents.