Courts convict nearly 13,000 on organized crime charges

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-01 15:36

BEIJING: China's courts have convicted 12,796 people in connection with 1,171 cases of organized crime since the beginning of 2006, a senior official of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Tuesday.

Around 6,700 people convicted in more than 720 of the cases had exhausted the appeals process, said Gao Jinghong, director of the SPC office on gang crime crackdown.

More than 3,100, or 46 percent of them, had received prison terms of more than five years, life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

The figures related to all cases of organized crime dealt with by law enforcement agencies during a nationwide campaign from the start of 2006 until the end of July this year.

Liao Jinrong, deputy director of the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), said the police had detained more than 89,000 people allegedly involved in organized crime during the campaign.

The police had investigated 1,267 organized crime cases and broken up more than 13,000 gangland organizations. More than 400 were involved in the construction, mining, transportation and wholesale sectors and the proceeds exceeded 4 billion yuan (588 million U.S. dollars).

They also investigated more than 108,000 other cases, including 419 homicide and 10,088 assault cases.

"Over the past three years, violent criminal cases, such as assault, homicide, robbery, abduction, explosion, arson and rape, had continued to decrease," Liao said.

The number of violent criminal cases in 2008 was down by 11 percent compared with 2005 before the campaign began, he said.

"The crackdown was of great significance for the stability of overall public security," Liao said, adding police had seized more than 2,700 guns.

Liao said informants had been important sources of clues. More than 2,500 pieces of information offered by the public had been handed to local public security bureaus by the MPS to help criminal investigation over the past three years and they had helped to break up more than 100 gangland organizations.

But Liao said "gangdom is still active in China," and police would maintain proactive measures in severely cracking down on gangsters and their "protective umbrella."

Gangsters' prosperity was often a result of protection by government officials or judiciary departments.

Huang Hailong, deputy director of the investigation supervision department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said 149 people had been prosecuted on charges of abuse of power and shielding criminals.

Prosecutors investigated 166 people involved in 137 cases of organized crime and approved the arrests of 155, Huang said.

"A crackdown on officially-sanctioned protection should be a priority," he said.

Between February 2006 and July this year, prosecutors approved the arrests of 44,139 people involved in 9,000 gang crime cases. More than 42,000 people connected to more than 7,300 cases had been prosecuted, he said

Li Yuqian, deputy director of the prison management bureau of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), said 8,444 criminals had been imprisoned since the start of 2006.

More than 1,300 people have been sent to sent to labor reeducation camps.

China's reeducation through its labor system follows strict legal procedures. Reeducation in such camps must be first proposed by the police, then approved by a labor camp management committee formed of public security, judiciary, labor and personnel departments as well as workers, youth and women's organizations.

It is carried out by judicial departments and supervised by prosecuting agencies.

Li said the MOJ put convicted gangdom leaders in prisons of regions different from their native or living places, to "resolutely cut off" illegal contact with accomplices; as they usually had solid networks, sometimes colluding with officials in judicial fields.

Nearly 200 convicts sentenced to imprisonment had been sent to prisons in different regions from where they were part of criminal activity, Li said.

He said authorities would impose stricter conditions of remission, parole or probation on them within the framework of the law.

Efforts should also be made to "prevent security accidents" related to imprisoned criminals and "monitor gangdom leaders' telecommunications and meeting with visitors according to law."