From Netease:
The former Chief of Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Justice Wen Qiang (文强) was executed on July 7. The Supreme Court firmly believes that he accepted huge amount of bribes, the circumstances are serious and causes great social harm. He was prosecuted for the crimes of harboring and abetting crime syndicates, obtaining large amounts of property from unidentified sources and rape.
Wen Qiang thus became the first Chief of the Public Security Bureau being sentenced to death and executed.
Since 5:35 am on July 7, China Youth Daily reporter was face to face with him in the monitoring room and witnessed the entire process of his last 4 hours alive. Wen Qiang was executed by lethal injection and later sent to the funeral home for cremation.
China Youth Daily reporter was permitted to interview Wen Qiang on July 6 and flew to Chongqing from Beijing. Staying up all night, reporter arrived at the detention center at 4 am on July 7th.
China Youth daily reporter was informed that on July 4, Wen Qiang chatted with the police for half an hour about the World cup quarter-final between Germany and Argentina. Wen Qiang felt it was unbelievable for Germany to beat Argentina, a team with incredible football tradition, with such a huge score. He suspected that there was sports gambling involved. Then Wen Qiang read the martial art novel intensely for 2 hours.
During the World Cup, Wen Qiang watched many football games; during the Dragon Boat Festival, he also ate Zhongzi.
At 2:40 pm on July 4, Wen Qiang got up after the afternoon nap and chatted with the police about the World Cup, and also his past experiences of traveling to United States and Brazil.
4:10 pm, Wen Qiang got a haircut then watched over a hour of television. After that he read books, had dinner and had a walk with the police in the prison room. He had steam eggs for dinner, and after dinner he exchanged views on Jin Yong, Gu Long and Liang Yu-shen three martial art novelists’ writing techniques with the police guard. Obviously he was very familiar with these classic characters and classic passages of these martial art novels.
That night, Wen Qiang was in the mood for conversation, topics were mainly sports and martial art novels. Then he watched the World Cup sports program on CCTV and gave his views and opinions on the games from time to time. Almost 11 pm, he then excitedly went to bed after he washed up.
“091” task force police told the reporter that the morning of July 5, Chongqing city discipline inspection commission announced to Wen Qiang the decision of “Double Discharge” – expelling him from the party and discharging him from public employment. Wen Qiang was emotional, his eyes were filled with tears.
China Youth Daily reporter was informed that after receiving the “Chongqing Municipal Supervision Bureau’s decision of double discharge” Wen Qiang objected parts of his criminal allegations on bribery. He said his wife received most of the properties, and he was unaware of the situation.
July 6, Wen Qiang appeared to have something weighing on his mind. 3:45 pm, the current Chief of Chongqing Public Security Bureau Wang Lijun (王立军) visited Wen Qiang in prison and left at 4:35 pm. After that, Wen Qiang was in a better mood. He ate three steamed eggs and a pear for dinner. After Wen Qiang asked the police to change the TV channel to sports, and continued to watch the World Cup. July 7 morning was the semi-final between Netherland and Uruguay.
At 5:10 am on July 7, Wen Qiang was woken up by the police, seemed somewhat at loss.
Wen Qiang moved very slowly, after he washed up, made his bed and took medicines. At 5:35 am the reporter was permitted to go into Wen Qiang’s single monitoring room. Reporter sincerely expressed the hopes for an interview, but unexpectedly Wen Qiang strongly refused to answer even to some “moderate” questions like “Someone said you are one of the top Criminal Investigation Experts, do you agree with this statement?” and “Who is the person you want to see the most right now?”.
Wen Qiang wore a very clean short-sleeved white shirt and gray trousers, looked blankly across the table and at the reporter, “I am not prepared, the questions you’ve mentioned cannot be answered in one or two sentences. I am about to go to court, and I need to get ready.”
Four ours before the execution, Wen Qiang faces the reporters
Wen Qiang started to read the court verdict that obviously has been flipped through many times and some of his written notes, and occasionally fixed his hair with his left fingers. With the new haircut he looked slightly younger than when he was at the court, his mood was also slightly better than during the second trial verdict. The reporter had close contact with him about 4 years ago. Compare to that time, Wen Qiang looked 10 years older.
What surprised the reporter the most was, Wen Qiang, who has been pampered all his life folded his blanket into a “square”, and it was unbelievably neat.
The night slowly faded away. At 6:10 am the Court’s vehicles arrived at the detention center.
6:20 am, Wen Qiang left the detention center. When the fleet of 6 vehicles reached the Yellow Garden Jialing River Bridge, the tall buildings of Yuzhong Peninsula slowly woke up in the mists. Dark colored window separated Wen Qiang from the outside world of the prison van. Even though the van was really close, reporter still could not see Wen’s figure.
6:55 am, the fleet reached Chongqing Municipality Intermediate People’s court and entered the Court through the underground garage.
7:15 am, the court announced the death penalty, and Wen Qiang is to be executed immediately.
According to witness at the scene, when the court announced the death penalty and the immediate execution, Wen Qiang’s expression was relatively calm, and he did not collapse.
7:40am, Wen Qiang met with his older sister and his son.
8:30 am a fleet of 12 vehicles left the court and headed to the execution site. Going through Jialing River Road which was densely covered by the guards, strict traffic control made the fleet moving really fast. People on the street stopped to watch the massive public security vehicle convoy and discussed heavily amongst themselves.
8:48 am, the vehicles entered Baigong Guan, Zhazi Dong prison Gele mountain. It was a sunny day, rare for the Gele Mountain which was known as “half mountain clouds and half mountain trees”.
9:05 am, after a muddy and narrow mountain road the convoy arrived at the execution site. Wen Qiang’s vehicle drove into a courtyard with 3 meters tall walls. Only a couple of cars went in, the rest of the police cars waited outside. Less than 10 minutes, all the vehicles left the execution site, which means Wen Qiang has reached the end of his life.
He used to wearing a police helmet, shoot the criminals and issued the ultimatums; he had stepped on top of “China’s number one violent criminal” Zhang Jun’s head and called his superior on the phone “Zhang Jun is caught, under my feet”; He used to make the police station director to make toasts to girls; He used to make his subordinates talking to him while kneeling down…
Wen Qiang, along with his itinerant life, on the top of the Gele Mountain became the end.
After Wen Qiang was executed, the celebration banners appeared on the streets of Chongqing. It said “Executing Wen Qiang, long live the Communist Party, long live the law”
”Executing Wen Qiang is the major victory of cracking down on corruptions”
“Wen Qiang dies, People are happy, Chongqiang is safe.”…
It was also reported here that people celebrated by lighting up fire crackers and fireworks in front of the court during the execution.
33 comments
i think there might be a few other wen qiangs out there…probably above or below the wen qiang in question. btw key…you have a typo in the first sentence of this post.
Thank you, fixed!
and another: four hours not four ours, and that’s under the first picture.
How about executing the entire politburo, thanks.
to get that high without revolutionary heritage, the politburo members are squeaky clean.
how bout anarchy, thanks but no thanks
wow… a man got executed for accepting bribes? o_O
yah, and you’d wonder how politician still exist as a profession
wonder why the ground floor windows on the building with the sign were boarded up .. expecting riots?
Killing a chicken to frighten the monkeys. But I think this is more related to pacifying the masses.
I am continually surprised at how callous some of these punishments are meted out. It speaks volumes to how people view human life and rights and dignity in a populace of 1.4 billion. Maybe when its this many people, life is cheap.
Corruption has far greater consequences than some petty murder. I wouldn’t call this man’s life when whether he lives or dies is so important.
文强死—-good
百姓欢—-they couldn’t care less
重庆安—-the other corrupted party cadres for sure
The propaganda from the government which actually celebrates the state sponsored murder of a human being is repugnant.
I am against capital punishment for a number of reasons. Would be better to let the bastard rot away in prison for life. Considering how many innocent people have been executed in the US or been on death row and cleared later on it makes me cringe to think about how many innocent people are being killed by the state every year in China.
then why are you so supportive in retarding the rotting process by feeding him
Your post doesn’t make sense.
retarding? look it up in the dictionary. it means to to delay/slow/hold back a process.
I meant to say if GuoBao is so keen in having him rot in prison, then have him rot literally.
albeit have him die. A play a word… sheesh..
“wordplay”
How many people have been on death row and later cleared in the US?
http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/dna-testing-and-death-penalty
The article is a bit dated, and I saw a supplement in the National Geographic recently that answered this very question (but don’t have it on hand at the moment). The number is something like 27, I think.
He died , seems to be a good news. But it also shows that the process of government facing gangdomcan only get here. Wen Qiang is a key of gangdom.He died , all the information that he know died. But he couldn’t say much things about gangdom I guess. He had to worry about his family if he had mentioned any secrets.
Anyway, he should die
I hope nobody celebrates with firecrackers when I die.
A glorious victory for the government. Kill corruption, kill problem.
You people say more humanity more thought for human kind. Fuck! This piece of shit, you give him kind, he go fuck your family later and save you for last with mouth slobbering.
When you allow your acts to sink to the depravity of the wicked you have perpetuated and endorsed the exact conduct you seek to censure.
I’m personally against the death penalty for a number of reasons, but it’s not because some people don’t deserve it. And I think that this guy did. Of course, there are gross miscarriages of justice that happen all the time, and in the U.S. too. There is the case of the Chicago 12 who were tortured into confessions for murders that they didn’t commit par example. But, people shouldn’t employ China’s use of the death penalty to demonize the whole country. Its execution rate is actually far lower than say Texas. It’s not like this guy was executed for a single murder that could have been overturned by DNA evidence. He had a laundry list of charges that were proven. Corruption is serious business and can be more deadly than a single murder. Such was the case in Sichuan where a school collapsed killing hundreds of children because corrupt school officials pocketed the money that was to go to construction materials and built the schools out of shoddy stuff. Also there was the case where hundreds of children died from melamine poisoning because an official was taking kickbacks from the milk companies. In America, these people would get sent to white collar prisons for maybe 10-20 years at most.
So in China they execute corrupt politicians. In the United States they give them an executive position at Goldman Sachs. GO CHINA!
One thing we can know . The guy being executed , always be someone who does actual work.
Wen Qiang hadn’t said anyone behind the truth. I guess if C-government keeps killing these bad guys , the qunantities of commies will be reduce to half of now. Am I right ?
Anyone else find it ironic that the CCP executed one of its own on the very mountain memorialized as a place where the KMT used to torture and execute communist subversives?
As for myself, I’m not normally in favor of the death penalty, but quite a few officials in Chongqing and China in general merit it. Having lived in Chongqing prior to Bo Xilai’s moral crusade, I can say that this guy probably deserved his punishment. His crimes are comparable to running a mafia, not just skimming a few million yuan off the top. I’ve sometimes wondered if corruption would be less endemic in China if all local officials were required to submit one of their family as a hostage of the state (preferably a son), to be punished alongside the father or mother for any crimes. Not exactly a fair or liberal idea, but possibly quite effective.
While we’re at it, let’s not kid ourselves about this anti-corruption crusade. It’s about business and thwarted central gov goals; propaganda for the masses is just the cherry on top. It was instigated mostly because the central government has been dumping money into Chongqing for 10 years, and the local government has not only been eating up that money for personal consumption (BMWs and the like), but been actively hostile to foreign investment/investors during much of that time. The central government seems to have taken quite a few raspberries blown its way from the provincial/local warlords, but CQ comes under direct central government remit (as one of China’s four special municipalities), and they weren’t going to take it lying down… well, not forever, anyway. Chongqing is a linchpin of their whole ‘develop the west’ plan. So, send in the guy (Bo Xilai) who made heads roll (and boosted investor confidence) in Dalian.
Hey that’s some great insights, Dr. Jones.
What can be said that hasn’t already been said?
Maybe this: For all the hoopla and “celebration” – it does not appear that the “red envelopes” have stopped, or even slowed. No, it appears for that to happen – better heads will have to roll – but appears to be very, very unlikely.
death,he already die,bacause he corruption.
Certainly he amassed a fortune. There is no talk of the money being recovered because it was not. As usual, the corrupt family will take it away. Evil wins again in China.