death penalty news August 14, 2005
CHINA: China pressured on death penalty The Chinese government is under pressure to scrap the death penalty for nonviolent crimes so that corrupt officials fleeing abroad can be more easily extradited. Chinese legal scholars have called on the government to modify the law so that foreign courts can be confident that fugitives returned to China will not face execution, according to a report in the official media Saturday. However, some legal experts believe it would take more than dropping the death penalty for economic crimes to streamline the return of suspects. "It will increase the probability that other countries will be willing to extradite suspects," said Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington University Law School and an expert on China's legal system. "But they will still have to overcome the obstacle, certain to be raised by defense counsel, of significant torture in China in breach of the United Nations Convention Against Torture." China's ruling Communist Party has been embarrassed by the exodus of corrupt officials fleeing the country, often after embezzling large sums of public money. The Commerce Ministry said in a report last year that 4,000 officials suspected of corruption had fled overseas in recent years. In perhaps the biggest case of this type, three managers from the Bank of China branch at Kaiping in Guangdong Province fled to the United States via Canada in October 2001 after stealing more than $485 million from the bank. One of the managers, Yu Zhendong, has been returned to China but the others remain at large. This year, another Bank of China manager, Gao Shan, disappeared overseas from the northeastern city of Harbin after transferring $123 million of the bank's funds into offshore accounts. Part of the problem for China is that it does not have extradition treaties with countries where corrupt officials often seek refuge. Extradition can occur without these treaties, but it can be more complicated. This month, the official Xinhua press agency quoted Chu Huaizhi, a legal expert from Beijing University, as saying that China had been unable to negotiate extradition treaties with countries including the United States, Japan and Canada. Part of the reason is that these countries are hesitant to sign treaties while China applies the death penalty for nonviolent crime. According to the official media, Chinese courts can impose the death penalty for almost 70 offenses, many of them nonviolent. The former head of the Bank of China's Hong Kong unit, Liu Jinbao, received a suspended death sentence on Friday for embezzlement and bribery. Suspended sentences are not usually carried out. Human rights groups estimate that China executed at least 3,400 people in 2004. China's top leaders, including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, strongly defend the death penalty. Many ordinary Chinese, angered by widespread graft, also support execution as a deterrent to corruption. However, there have been signs of increasing flexibility, with Beijing prepared at times to guarantee foreign governments that fugitives would be spared the death penalty as a condition of their return to China. "In terms of extradition, the death penalty has been a big problem, particularly for the Europeans," said Steve Vickers, a former senior Hong Kong police officer who is now president of the private investigation company, International Risk. "Now they are opening the door a little." The United States returned Yu, the former Bank of China manager, to China in April last year after reaching a deal in which the Chinese authorities agreed that he would not be executed, tortured or jailed for more than 12 years. (source: International Herald Tribune)
