Saturday, July 29, 2006

Did RCMP/CSIS Kill Cecilia…and Dr. Jiang?

An open letter to Prime Minister Harper


Dear Mr. Harper:

It is with great pain from my sick bed that I write you this open letter. The lives of Chinese Canadians are in danger. The death of Dr. Guobing Jiang in Toronto last Friday worries me greatly. It happened despite I repeated Cecilia parents’ wish that “every family will live in peace” in The Meaning of Justice.

The news has not been reported by the mainstream media. For most people who don’t know, Dr. Jiang, a post-doctorate fellow at Ryerson University, was pronounced by Toronto Police to have committed a suicide by jumping off Don Mills Rd bridge onto Hwy 401 in Toronto in the early morning hours of Friday, July 21.

Another tragedy among recent immigrants, I thought initially, like everybody else. As more reports came online, however, I can’t help but be struck by the following facts: Dr. Jiang is from the same province in China as I am. His family and educational background are quite similar to mine. His first Ph.D. is in nuclear physics, whilst there have been some attention over nuclear weapon issues in my blog. He allegedly jumped off a bridge, whilst I climed a bridge to protest the cover-up of Cecilia Zhang murder. Even the alleged location of his suicide is so very close to Cecilia Zhang’s residence where she was abducted.

Then it hit me this Wednesday that it was on the same day of his death that a RCMP officer came to my residence and threatened to arrest me, among other things. These two events were just like what happened on that fateful day of October 20, 2003: A disaster fell upon an innocent Chinese in Toronto (Cecilia Zhang was abducted) and a RCMP officer dealt with me in a deliberately confrontational style here in Burnaby. (Besides, Norman Spector seemed to be sending me some kind of ill-fated messages since Wednesday.)

The RCMP visit to my residence itself was quite sudden and strange. Arranged by my Bail Officer, Jodi Webber of Burnaby Community Corrections, it was the only such visit since I was on bail at the beginning of November 2005. -- To be fair to her, I offered her an opportunity to explain her decision this morning so that I could incorporated it in this letter. She did not appear to have a good one.

I am fairly confident about my previous conclusions that CIC was involved in the crime against Cecilia Zhang and that the Min Chen trial was more or less a show. And I knew, through my long journey to seek justice for Cecilia, that political and intellectual elites in Canada - and to some extent, in the United States – knew my story and lately, that they in fact knew more than I did and in particular, they knew who killed Cecilia Zhang. In particular, I got a lot of hints from reading Norman Spector’s daily press review.

I understand how flimsy this may seem to average citizens. It is in fact one of the reasons that I did not write about it for more than two months. I especially would have resented the “conspiracy theorist” label as I am a facts-and-logic guy. My preferred route would be to break the story first and let people ask questions. Still, circumstantial evidences implicating RCMP/CSIS are many. Since this is an open letter, it would help the average citizens to know these evidences available to me.

I urge people read my Report first because the crime perpetrated against Cecilia Zhang was related to my experience in Vancouver area. In my Report, people can see that I had been harassed and my privacy had been invaded for a long time. For example:

  1. Unreasonable search at the airport;
  2. Numerous police incidents;
  3. I was followed by the three daughters of one of the Defendants in my private lawsuit;
  4. My second cell phone, which I bought anonymously for the exclusive purpose to communicate with Mr. Warren Buffett, was tracked;
  5. Numerous incidents of telephone and Internet intrusions.

Despite these many incidents, I had always thought that the Defendants named in my lawsuit were the culprits of these harassment activities. They definitely had the money and resources to carry out these activities. Of course, RCMP/CSIS could be involved, but I thought they could only be in a minor role at most. Maybe just a few bad apples in these organizations did the Defendants’ bidding. After all, why would RCMP or CSIS spend taxpayer’s money on these kinds of shenanigan anyways?

As for the Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder case, it never crossed my mind that RCMP/CSIS played a role in it. For one thing, the crime happened in another city. For another, while I could understand local police’s hatred toward me because of the Defendants’ one-sided spin about our private dispute, what reason could RCMP/CSIS possibly have to kill an innocent 9-year-old girl? (Even with that hatred toward me, I would say the harassment the local police inflicted on me is totally different from a murder.)

Until May 18.

On May 18, an Armstrong, BC police spokesman defended the force’s decision on CBC Radio of not issuing an Amber Alert in the Carmen Kados abduction case. (This girl was later found alive, fortunately.) He said that there are strict conditions for issuing Amber Alert, including description of suspect or suspect’s vehicle.

That’s definitely not the case when Toronto police issued an Amber Alert just four and a half hours after Cecilia Zhang was reported missing. Now, I believe the objective of Cecilia’s abduction was, sickeningly, to create massive media coverage in case I went public with my story on that day. There appeared to be no better tool than an Amber Alert to magnify the intensity of the coverage.

A natural question was: Since there was definitely no condition for issuing the Amber Alert, why would Toronto police force do that? This question, together with the following doubts about the case in my mind, led me to realize that Toronto Police Service might have played a major role in the crime against Cecilia Zhang.

  1. Min Chen only became a suspect after Peel Regional Police get involved in the investigation. Moreover, Toronto Star reported on July 25, 2004 that Peel police found out some evidence had been overlooked by Toronto police.
  2. Paragraph 69 of the ASOF says: “The Defendant did not expect that the police would become involved.” Even when the investigation later targeted on him, he was still very calm. Why was he so confident?
  3. The woman, through whom Min Chen got to know the Zhang family, was reportedly close to be charged with obstruction of justice one time. However, her name was not even disclosed in the ASOF, in stark contrast with so many other individuals whose names were disclosed in the ASOF.
  4. In Paragraph 46 of the ASOF, it was disclosed that only after Peel police got involved, did the investigation contact the woman in question. And it was then that the police found out that Min Chen had visited the house before.
  5. Regarding the early morning phone calls to Cecilia’s mother – which Min Chen denies making -- Paragraph 22 of the ASOF says: “There is a sign visible from the pay telephone, which indicates that the area is subject to video surveillance. Police later discovered that there was no video surveillance in effect that day.” Isn’t that odd?
  6. According to the ASOF, when Min Chen entered the Zhang house, only Cecilia woke up. But it’s common sense that young kids sleep deeper than seniors, such as her grandfather who, by the way, did not wake up. – What really happed might be that Cecilia did not wake up at all. Indeed, earlier reports said that police had uncovered evidence from Cecilia’s room. What happened to those evidence?
  7. Paragraph 80 of the ASOF says that the shovel Min Chen used to bury Cecilia’s body was “found nearby”. How convenient. Wasn’t it dark in the woods?
  8. How could Min Chen carry an 80-pound child out of the house all by himself without making some noise? Besides, investigator had said on American’s Most Wanted that there was evidence to suggest that more than one suspect were involved in the crime.


This realization came as a shock to me. However, it was confirmed by reading the political and intellectual elites.


…TBD

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

An update on myself

Confined to bed for more than a week. Human body can only take so many beatings.

If someone points a gun at me, obviously there is not much I can do now.

Sympathies accepted. But please, don't let my Mom know.

Merci.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

What happened at the Min Chen “trial”?

My recent analysis of the Cecilia Zhang case, which confirmed my earlier allegation that the CIC was involved in the crime against Cecilia, was based on collaborated or easily verifiable facts from three different sources: (1) the Agreed Statement of Facts; (2) media reports based on interviews with Min Chen's one-time housemate Ms. Coco Zhao; and (3) media reports based on interviews with former Chen family spokesperson Ms. Lin Yang. These facts were mostly related to Min Chen's immigration moves.

Even if the prosecution or the defendant's lawyers did not know my allegations before (I wrote to John Rosen last August), Min Chen's immigration moves AFTER he kidnapped Cecilia Zhang were so bizarre that they should have escaped nobody's attention. So the natural questions were: Did the prosecution or the defendant's lawyers knew about Chen's immigration moves, particularly those after he kidnapped Cecilia Zhang? If Chen family spokesperson Ms. Lin Yang knew that Chen's family paid most of his sham marriage fees in Shanghai, how could Chen's lawyers did not know it, too? And how could the prosecution not know these activities, having found out that Chen's ultimate motive was immigration? And if they did know, how did they reconcile with their agreed statement that Chen's motive was kidnapping for ransom to pay for his sham marriage? And why were those facts not even mentioned in the ASOF?

These were the nagging doubts in my mind about a trial that ended abruptly before it even started. Reading the latest media interview given by one of Chen's lawyers, Mr. John Lee, however, I felt I have to raise these concerns.

With the latest one, Mr. John Lee has given at least three Chinese media interviews - which were listed at the end of this blog - since Chen's guilty plea on May 9, mostly to counter the doubts and concerns coming from the Chinese community. His comments might sound reasonable, especially to those who are relatively new to Canadian judicial system, but some are in fact quite at odds with his role as a defence lawyer.

Let's take a look at some of his more peculiar ones.

  • Having said, cynically, that his only regret was the missed opportunity to get some practice in court, Mr. John Lee spells out the reasons why he is quite satisfied with the outcome of the trial, i.e., the ASOF.

从节省纳税人金钱的角度看,陈敏案件尚未正式开庭便认罪当然好,…

To reduce cost of a trial, isn't that the prosecution's consideration? When did it become a concern for the defence lawyer?

  • In urging people to accept the ASOF, he said:

…案发后网上出现很多号称认识陈敏或者陈敏室友发的帖子,都是不负责任的,对破案调查工作有负面作用。

Now he is speaking for the investigation! Isn't the job of defence lawyer to try his best to poke holes in the investigation, and to criticize the investigation for failing to pursue every tip, if that's the case? And why was he, as a defence lawyer, so concerned about "Internet postings" that might have a "negative impact" on the investigation?

This latest interview of Lee's was made after I posted my analysis of Min Chen's motive on June 3. I am not sure if Lee is responding to my analysis. It's hard to debate with someone who does not even acknowledge your letter.

  • Lee then admitted an error had been made by the defence, but was quite ambiguous as to what exactly the error was.

案件审理过程中,栗钧也觉得有些机会被辩方错过了,如陈敏母亲去年 9月来多探望儿子,法官特别批准陈母与陈敏先后交谈近7 个小时,如果能够把握机会,对案件审理可能会有帮助。

I am not sure if it was a response to my analysis posted on June 3.

  • As to how the deal was reached between the prosecution and the defense, Mr. John Lee was all over the map. There are so many questions remain to be answers and so many contradictions in these interviews, including how Chen and his parents came on board the process, that any attempt to draw a conclusion is fruitless. In one instance, Lee even jokingly compared the process for the negotiated ASOF to that of the Sino-American Joint Communiqués.
  • In speaking out for the victim's family, John Lee used the privacy argument, except that he appeared to have exchanged the two interpretations of the concept privacy in the same paragraph.


在回答"为甚么强调尊重张家家庭隐私"问题时,栗钧表示,他曾在多个场合对采访他的记者表示,在报导时"请朋友们要嘴上留情、手下留情,理解、尊重人家的隐私。"他说,其实每个家庭都有自己的隐私。夫妇之间的谈话有必要在媒体上公开吗 ? 人们应该关注的是小女孩为甚么失踪和死亡,而不是与此无关的事情。"失去女儿张东岳的父母已经受到极大打击,再讲甚么不负责任的话伤害他们,就是在做伤天害理的事。"

While it is true that we all ought to respect Zhangs' privacy (private space), and it is also true the public does not have the privacy (right to know) the private conversations between couples - I do not know what's the relevance of this later argument except that I wrote in fall 2005 an Internet posting on the role of privacy (right to know) in the cause of Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder - Lee was clearly trying to confuse people to advance his argument.

In these interviews, Mr. John Lee sounded like a spokesman for the whole group involved in the trial, i.e., the prosecution, the defence and the victim, rather than a defence lawyer. It is odd.

Indeed, the most notable thing in the whole trial was how everyone directly involved in it was so consistent in speaking out for the Zhangs' need for closure. The prosecution said it in the ASOF, over and over again. Ontario AG emphasised it in his media interview. John Rosen said it after the guilty plea, coincidentally using some of the key words in my blog. John Lee mentioned it many many times to the Chinese community.

I feel for Cecilia's parents. And I know that it is important for them to have closure. But when everyone spoke with the same voice in a normally adversary relationship, someone had to be in a conflict-of-interest position. What's more, my strong feeling is that people involved in the case knew my allegations beforehand, their non-acknowledgement to my letter notwithstanding.

What really worries me is that victim's need for closure had been used as a convenient and powerful excuse to get the trial over with as fast as possible and thus conceal as much information as possible from the public.

Could that be the case? Could it?


Interviews with John Lee

Sunday, July 09, 2006

"Steve" Harper, impressive leadership?

That's the praise Mr. Bush heaped on his new friend.

A friend in need is a friend indeed, indeed.

But apparently, neither of the two leaders has a clue what true leadership is.

Sigh.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

An update on my mom

Since she checked out of hospital in early June, my mom had been slowly recovering. (Really, her recovery was so slow that it might as well be called stabilizing.) Until yesterday.

She was so weak yesterday that she could not finish her routine walk.

I did not relay any bad news from my side, not even a hint of it. Apparently, the smelting heat was to blame.