The preachers of the Covenant Home Church, including Li Jie, Han Xiaodong, Wang Qiang, and others, were accused of fraud. Today, lawyers Fang Xiangui and Yuan Mao visited the Yaodu District Court in Linfen City to review the case files. Judge Jia Jing, being in a meeting, arranged for a clerk to receive them. The lawyers expressed their intention to copy some electronic data. The clerk presented a bag of CDs, and the lawyers saw the interrogation recordings of the three defendants. The clerk legally ensured the lawyers’ right to review the files, arranging for technical staff to copy the recordings for them.
During the copying process, Judge Jia Jing called the technical staff, demanding to stop the copying and delete the interrogation recordings already copied to the USB drive. The 17 CDs of the defendants’ interrogation recordings contained notes like “case officer’s tone is bad,” “case officer’s words are intimidating,” “XXX speaks in a loud tone,” etc. Lawyers Fang and Yuan met with the defendants, who revealed they were taken to a dim interrogation room in a detention center, where police officers threatened to imprison their wife, father, sister, and even break their legs upon release, using filthy language to insult their faith. The investigators’ use of illegal methods, such as threatening the defendants and their families and insulting their faith, is confirmed in the video materials.
The defense lawyers’ right to review the case files is legally established: Article 40 of the Criminal Procedure Law, Article 53 of the Explanation of the Criminal Procedure Law, and Article 14 of the regulations by the two high authorities and three departments on ensuring lawyers’ practice rights, all specify that defense attorneys can review, excerpt, and copy case file materials from the date of case review and prosecution.
The two lawyers returned to Judge Jia Jing’s office, where she, looking displeased, warned them not to copy the recordings. Lawyers Fang and Yuan argued their case based on reason, and the presiding judge, hearing the argument, called them to his office. Once Judge Jia Jing and the two lawyers were in the presiding judge’s office, the lawyers stated their legal basis and reasons for requesting copies of the recordings. Judge Jia Jing remained stern, unwilling to listen to the lawyers and intimidating them by slamming the desk. The law allows defense attorneys to request access to interrogation audio and video recordings and does not prohibit copying them. Especially for those recordings already marked with clues of illegal evidence collection, it is reasonable for defense lawyers to request copies. Judge Jia Jing’s act of slamming the desk, intimidating the lawyers, and abruptly stopping the copying process, possibly conceals evidence, and an investigation into this behavior by the Yaodu District Court in Linfen City is requested.
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