Witnesses in the subversion trial of Chinese dissident Jiang Qisheng issued Saturday an open letter to the government claiming testimony attributed to them in the official court verdict was fabricated.
In the letter the four witnesses denied receiving a document from Jiang criticizing China's one party communism political system or helping Jiang print an article advocating a reassessment of the June 4, 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy protests.
Such activities formed the burden of proof in the trial which resulted in a four-year sentence for subversion.
The open letter was distributed to Beijing overseas news agencies by the Chinese dissident-run group Human Rights in China (HRIC), based in New York.
It did not dispute that police and prosecutors interrogated Chen Qinglin, Gao Yuxiang, Meng Yuanxin and Zhao Qin, all former colleagues of Jiang, following Jiang's arrest in 1999.
However the letter maintained that either the police, prosecutors or the court fabricated the testimony.
"The testimony in the official verdict is not only purely fictitious it is a complete reversal of the facts," HRIC said.
The letter further disputed the court's judgement that a 1999 article written by Jiang that called on Beijing citizens to light candles in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown constituted the crime of subversion.
Jiang, 52, was sentenced on December 27, after being held in jail for 19 months while Chinese courts deliberated over how to handle his case.
The long period of time between Jiang's October 1999 trial and last week's verdict reflected the court's difficulty in accepting the evidence in the case, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said recently.
Hundreds, and by some accounts, thousands of demonstrators were killed when tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3 and early morning of June 4, 1989, crushing weeks of unprecedented protests calling for democratic change.
Jiang was vice president of a group of student leaders who in 1989 met then Premier Li Peng and other high ranking Chinese officials during the student demonstrations.
He was locked up in prison for a year and a half following the crackdown on demonstrators -- BEIJING (AFP)
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