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

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