One Billion Customers - James McGregor [62]
In June 2002, the board ruled against Lai, essentially finding in favor of the Chinese government that Lai was not a political refugee but a criminal subject to extradition. On February 4, 2004, Lai lost his first appeal in the Federal Court of Canada. But Lai’s lawyer, David Matas, Canada’s leading human rights attorney, said appeals could continue for several more years. In essence, Matas intends to put China’s legal and court system on trial in Canada. He said Lai has a well-founded fear of persecution because he likely faces an unfair trial, torture, and death back in China.
“That fits the legal definition of a refugee,” Matas said.
Consequences
Lai’s family is in shambles. His brother who ran the cigarette business, Lai Changbiao, is back home in Shaocuo, a paraplegic as a result of a bar fight. Lai Changtu, the brother who ran the automobile operation, is serving fifteen years in jail. Lai Shuiqiang, the trusting elder brother who inadvertently lured thirteen other participants home to be prosecuted, was given a lenient sentence of seven years for his cooperation. Two years into his sentence he died in a labor camp at age fifty-four. Officials said it was a heart attack. One of Lai’s nephews, Chen Wenyuan, is serving a life sentence after officials suspended his death sentence. Lai’s father-in-law and mother-in-law were jailed for sending Lai money for his legal defense.
Beyond Lai’s immediate family, the toll from the Yuanhua case has been enormous. Nearly four hundred government officials were caught up in the case, including two ministers, twenty-six provincial officials, and eighty-six county officials. A total of 159 officials faced criminal charges, while 196 officials with senior party rank were punished according to party discipline. Fourteen people received death sentences. Four people committed suicide.
Yang Qianxian, the head of Xiamen customs, received a death sentence for taking some $170,000 in bribes from Lai. The sentence was suspended and Yang given an indeterminate jail sentence in return for his cooperation in implicating Lai. Zhuang Rushun, the rising star and deputy chief of the Fujian province police, was sentenced to death, but the sentence was changed to an indeterminate jail sentence because he cooperated in the case. Lan Fu, the greedy vice-mayor of Xiamen, was charged with taking bribes totaling some $600,000 and sentenced to death. It was later commuted to an indeterminate jail sentence after he confessed and helped investigators.
Li Jizhou, Lai’s close friend and vice-minister of the Public Security Bureau, was sentenced to death. The sentence was reduced to jail time because he “showed repentance.” In his written confession, Vice-Minister Li said his major problem was neglecting his political study, “seldom reading the books of Marx, Lenin, and Mao.” He also said he had spent too much time with businessmen.
“According to the old saying, Government officials shouldn’t have too many friends,” he wrote. “That makes sense.”
Lai need not feel lonely. Just three months after he fled China for Canada, Forbes magazine published the first-ever list of China’s richest people. Cobbled together from bits and pieces of ten years of accumulated newspapers and other public documents, the Forbes list soon became known in the Chinese media as the “death list” for the government scrutiny that it focused on entrepreneurs who had been less than scrupulous in amassing their wealth. As other lists of rich Chinese appeared in the popular media, the Chinese government acknowledged that some four thousand Chinese government officials were on the