China police killer stands second trial, appealing against death penalty
13/10/2008 17:08
Yang Jia, a jobless Beijing man who intruded into Shanghai police bureau
and killed six officers, stood on the second trial in Shanghai today, appealing
against the death penalty handed down earlier by a Shanghai court.
Lawyer
Zhai Jian, who was appointed by the Shanghai Higher People's Court to defend
Yang at the second trial, said that his defendant's fate would be largely on the
new round of forensic psychiatric assessment at the trial.
Yang Jia, 28, was
sentenced to death on Sept. 1 in the first trial at the Shanghai No. 2
Intermediate People's Court for killing six officers and injuring four others in
the assault on July 1.
The court ruled Yang had perfect capacity for criminal
responsibility according to a forensic psychiatric assessment conducted by a
qualified and specialized institute entrusted by the police. But it didn't give
a specific name of the institute.
The higher court appointed renowned
criminal lawyer Zhai Gang to replace Yang's former lawyer Xie Youming at the
trial, though Yang's father wrote to the court to oppose the
appointment.
Zhai said that the defendant himself refused to accept the
lawyers recommended by his father. The court reached him to take the lawsuit
through the municipal legal aid center.
Zhai, widely acclaimed as one of the
best criminal lawyers in China, is also deputy director of the Criminal
Committee of the China Lawyers Association.
He said that he had made
face-to-face talks with Yang for three times.
"I want to defend Yang by
convincing the court that Yang is mentally abnormal," said Zhai before the
trial.
He said that Yang's inexplicable behavior to kill the policemen who
were complete strangers to him suggested the possibility that he might have
psychiatric diseases.
Yang stabbed a security guard at the police branch in
Zhabei District and started a fire at its gate, before forcing his way into the
building and attacking nine police officers, according to the prosecution. Six
police died. Three others and the security guard were injured.
Yang was
apprehended at the scene and confessed to the killings, the prosecution
said.
Yang's father Yang Fusheng and aunt Wang Jingrong appeared in the
public gallery of the court today. The trial is continuing.
Xinhua
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