Procurators throughout the Nation Observed the First Case of “Excluding Illegal Evidence” in Beijing

In the morning of September 13, defendant Guo Zongkui and others were tried for drug trafficking at the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court. After the indictment was read by the prosecutor, Guo’s defense counsel claimed that, after Guo was arrested, the police threatened him verbally and his confession was made in a state of “complete mental breakdown”. The defense counsel therefore called for exclusion of the illegally obtained evidence.

Five minutes later, the collegiate panel ruled that the prosecutor’s evidence was insufficient in eliminating a reasonable doubt that the police had abused their powers when investigating Guo on August 21. Guo’s confession made on that day was hence held to be inadmissible in court.

After giving the verdict, the presiding judge of the case explained why only the first confession of Guo was excluded but not the other four. The defendant’s first confession in Chengdu was not transcribed and its video recording was incomplete; whereas his second confession was not video recorded but only transcribed. “Even though no act of threat was found in the incomplete video, its incompleteness makes it inadmissible in court,” said the judge. As to the latter four confessions which were both video recorded and...