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Gang boss goes on trial

By Wang Huazhong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-09 07:53

The first gang case connected to arrested former municipal justice bureau director Wen Qiang was made public yesterday at the trial for Wang Tianlun, a billionaire and accused gang boss.

Wen testified that Wang, who allegedly monopolized the hog slaughtering and pork distribution markets, had bribed him 200,000 yuan to help cover up the killing of a man by the gang.

Wang yesterday stood trial with 22 alleged associates of his mafia-style gang in Chongqing's No 5 Intermediate People's Court. The gang, consisting of many family members of the 44-year-old Wang, is facing nine charges including leading or participating in mafia-style gangs, intentionally causing injury on others, racketeering, illegally detaining others, forcing trades, and bribery.

The gang is accused of killing one man and injuring two. Police say the gang beat and hacked those attempting to interfere with its business that generated more than 100 million yuan in profits since 1999, the prosecutor said.

Among all high-profile trials on organized gangs following the city's crackdown on gangs since June, Wang's case is the first one connected to Wen, ex-deputy director of the Chongqing municipal public security bureau and ex-director of the city's justice bureau.

Wen, 54, is the most senior level official formally arrested in September for protecting a string of local organized gangs. Wen's confession is quoted in the indictment to prove that gang boss Wang once offered him 200,000 yuan through a middleman in a restaurant in September 2007, after gang members beat a man to death.

Wen's testimony in court could later be used to convict himself, when he is tried of accepting bribes and protecting mafia-style gangs.

Yesterday prosecutors said Wang's brother, Wang Dongming, assigned two other gangsters in mid-December 2003 to "teach a lesson" to a local pig farmer who did not send his hogs to the slaughtering company operated by the gang. The man died after the assault. Having accepted the money, Wen, then a police head, exerted influence on senior officials of the municipal crime investigation department and incumbent case team. He later arranged the case to be solved by another team under official Huang Daiqiang's lead, according to prosecutors.

Hundreds of citizens reportedly crowded outside the court to "stay close to the trial".