"Stand News" was accused of publishing articles with seditious content. Its former editor-in-chief Zhong Peiquan, acting editor-in-chief Lin Shaotong and the registered company of the website were charged with conspiracy to publish or reproduce seditious publications. The case continued in the District Court today (13th) During the trial, it was revealed in the earlier trial that the police had picked up hundreds of articles when collecting evidence, but they had not disclosed them to the defense. After thinking about it, he decided not to hand over the information, which made the case unfair. A senior inspector of the National Security Department was summoned to testify today, saying that they obtained hundreds of articles that they subjectively believed were incitement, and then screened out 30 articles. Handed over to the prosecution team of the Department of Justice, he believed that the articles that were not selected were not relevant to the case. He admitted that he did not ask the Department of Justice for instructions before selecting the 30 articles, and said: "I don't think it is necessary."
Earlier interrogation revealed that the police had embarrassed hundreds of articles that were not disclosed
Yu Ruowei, a senior counsel representing the defense, when cross-examining a police witness last month, revealed that the prosecution failed to disclose 300 unused materials to the defense. Afterwards, six file folders containing more than 1,500 pages of documents were presented to the defense.
The defense then argued that the new evidence might affect the direction of the defense's cross-examination, and the case was adjourned until now.
Senior Inspector Lu Jianxian was summoned to explain the process of obtaining the articles involved in the case.
(Photo by Liu Anqi)
Senior Inspector of Homeland Security Summoned to Testify
Barrister Ma Weiyu today represented the two defendants, Zhong Peiquan and Lin Shaotong, to apply for a permanent termination of the hearing, and summoned Senior Detective Inspector Lu Jianxian who instructed to capture the screenshot of "Stand" to testify.
At the time of the case, Lu belonged to the Y (1) unit of the computer group of the National Security Department, and was mainly responsible for the preservation of online evidence and intelligence collection.
Articles on the website will be deleted upon receipt of information
Lu confessed that his boss, Chief Inspector Chen Ming'an, told him in June 2021 that he received intelligence that "Standard" would delete a large number of articles on its website, and that these articles might violate the law. Articles within the webpage.
Lu said that whenever he "subjectively believes" that any part of the article may violate the crime of sedition or the "National Security Law", he will immediately print the article.
Lu did not calculate how many articles he had printed in total at that time. He and Chen then screened out 553 articles with sensitive content and handed them over to his subordinate police officer Liao Haoming for retrieval.
A few days later, Lu was instructed to review the articles on the "Standard" website with Chen, and screened another 34 articles with sensitive content for extraction.
The process of the two defendants from arrest to bail.
(See the picture below for details)
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Only hand over the 30 selected articles to the multi-controlling party
Lu and Chen then selected about 100 articles from the 587 articles obtained from the above two inspections, and then worked with a superintendent to select 30 articles from them.
After providing the 30 articles to the case supervisor for review, they deemed that they no longer needed the articles and destroyed them.
Until November 4 this year, the case supervisor requested to provide the above-mentioned 587 articles, and Lu instructed Liao to reprint these articles from his computer.
Think other articles are irrelevant to the case
Lu admitted that although the paper copies of the 587 articles were destroyed, he knew that Liao's computer still had them.
As for why Liao did not hand over all relevant articles to the case supervisor, Lo believed it was because no one had given such instructions.
Lu also asked the defense what "relevant documents" are. According to his knowledge, 30 articles related to the case have been handed over, and the other articles have nothing to do with the case.
Lu also agreed that before the final selection of the 30 articles, they did not seek any legal instructions from the prosecution team of the Department of Justice, and said: "I don't think it is necessary."
The defense believes that the police were not careless
The defense believes that the police did not hand over all the articles to the case supervisor due to carelessness, but made this decision after deliberation, which caused injustice.
The three defendants, in order: Best Pencil (Hong Kong) Limited, Zhong Peiquan (52 years old) and Lin Shaotong (34 years old), were charged with one count of "conspiracy to publish or reproduce seditious publications".
Case No.: DCCC265/2022
The former editor-in-chief of the Stand News case, Zhong Peiquan, was granted bail of 100,000 yuan and left the court at noon. The defense of the Stand News case will apply to terminate the hearing. The defense said it was shocked by the news case. The police read several readers’ messages. The prosecution said it would use this to prove the degree of incitement. Alleged that 10 of the 17 articles involved in the case should not be prosecuted after the time limit