(Minghui.org) Mr. Liu Shaoping was tried for the second time at the Jiexi County Court on the afternoon of March 10, 2015. The trial had to be postponed for several hours after Mr. Liu's lawyer requested the presiding judge be replaced because the judge refused to remove Mr. Liu's handcuffs and was biased towards the case.
Mr. Liu's lawyer, Chen Keyun, asked the judge to order the handcuffs be removed from the defendant. The judge replied, “The handcuffs don't need to be removed if the bailiff thinks it's not necessary.” The judge later said that Mr. Liu needed to keep the handcuffs on because he was involved in a serious case.
In the USA, for example, handcuffs only remain on defendants considered to be flight risks or potentially violent.
The lawyer argued that in China, typically only defendants sentenced to life were handcuffed during a trial, and it was unfair for the judge to form an opinion of Mr. Liu's case before the trial had even began. The judge ignored the lawyer's request.
Lawyer Chen then asked that the judge be recused because he was unfair and biased towards Mr. Liu. He further stated that it was already unjust that Mr. Liu was being tried.
The judge left the courtroom for 30 minutes to check with his superiors about the request for his recusal. When the judge returned, he stated that the president of the court said he should remain as the judge. He then ordered the bailiff to remove the handcuffs from Mr. Liu, and the trial finally began after 4 p.m.
Mr. Liu made an innocent plea, while his lawyer argued that the persecution of Falun Gong was against the law and the Chinese constitution. Mr. Liu was innocent, but several officers abused the law and fabricated so-called “evidence” of a so-called “crime” nevertheless. The judge interrupted Mr. Liu and the lawyer's defense multiple times during the trial, which ended in two hours.
Background Information
Mr. Liu was arrested in August 2014, and severely beaten in a detention center. The Jiexi Procuratorate rejected his case on December 10, 2014, due to lack of evidence. The police, however, submitted his case to the procuratorate again on January 8, 2015.
Perpetrators involved in persecuting Mr. Liu:Chen Shaohua (陈少华), president of Jiexi Court: +86-663-5230604 (Office), +86-13502698300 (Cell)Ouyang Liping (欧阳丽萍), judge of Jiexi CourtZou Li (邹立), clerk at Jiexi CourtWei Weitian (魏伟填), president of Jiexi Procuratorate: +86-13925610986 (Cell)Xu Xiaofang (徐小芳), prosecutor of Jiexi Procuratorate
