Police in east China's Shandong Province have busted a group that allegedly organized multiple mass protests to influence court sentences, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
The group in question specialized in paying a "relatively regular" group of people who acted as mass protestors in the name of protecting the rights of petitioners and assisting lawyers advocating their rights, the ministry said in a late Sunday statement, citing police investigations.
Among the detained is Zhai Yanmin, 54, the main organizer that paid people to stage protests, and Liu Jianjun, a lawyer who accepted cases from involved parties who hoped to influence judges and assigned them to Zhai. They are under the charge of staging illegal gathering to disrupt social order.
"The group was close-knitted with specific assignments for its members, and their activities were seen in heated cases across the country," the statement said.
The statement cited one incident on June 15, when unidentified protestors holding banners saying "people have the rights to supervise justice" and "Xu is not guilty" gathered in front of the Intermediate People's Court of Weifang, a city in Shandong, resulting in a huge number of onlookers and severe traffic jams.
At the same time, pictures and stories were posted on foreign websites, claiming that petitioners gathering before the court accused the judicial organ of wrongful convictions, according to the statement.
Follow-up inquiries revealed that the protestors came from eight provinces and had nothing to do with Xu. The protestors said they only knew Xu's case was related to corruption, and they were "employed" by Zhai to stage the protest.
Zhai was arrested on the same day in Beijing.
"I had run several businesses, but they all failed... then I met some petitioners and won their praises by helping them. I felt proud once again, and came up with the idea of doing favor for petitioners to make money and build reputation," Zhai was quoted by the police as saying.
Zhai received the case of Xu from Liu, who is with the Beijing-based Kangpu Law Firm, after Xu's relatives asked Liu to find a way to have Xu's sentences revoked during the second trial at the Weifang court.
"I felt that Zhai could help since he was a man very passionate about public affairs," Liu said, adding that he later introduced Xu's wife to Zhai and they made the deal to stage protests at the court.
In addition to fake protestors "bought" at the price of 1,000 yuan (161 U.S. dollars) each person, the deal also included a "seminar" on Xu's case with the participation of university professors, experts and reporters to create a hype before the protest.
Liu received 14,000 yuan as kickback from the 70,000 yuan paid by Xu's relatives for the seminar. Zhai initially got 10,000 yuan from Xu's wife to pay for the protestors.
Referring to Liu Xing, the leading protestor instructing others before the court, Zhai said, "he had done this before... sitting in silence, shouting slogans, raising banners and uploading photos online to increase pressure on courts."
Zhai admitted that he would receive an unknown amount of extra money if the protest was effective, and if the protestors were detained, Xu's relatives would have to pay more as condolence money for the detainees.
