The lawyer for an alleged gang boss in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality received a reduced one-and-a-half-year prison term Tuesday.

He had appealed charges that he helped his client make false claims of torture by police during interrogation.

Left: Beijing lawyer Li Zhuang awaits the ruling at the Chongqing No 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday. Right: Gao Zicheng, Li's defense attorney, meets the press outside court after the ruling. [Photo/China Daily]

But the Beijing lawyer, Li Zhuang, yelled out in court after the punishment was announced that he only confessed during the appeal after "senior officials" told him that doing so would get him a suspended sentence.

Yesterday's verdict upheld a previous conviction that he fabricated evidence and interfered with witness testimony while trying to save suspected local gang boss Gong Gangmo.

But the Chongqing No 1 Intermediate People's Court shortened the sentence from two and a half years "considering Li's (cooperative) attitude in pleading guilty" during the second trial, according to the verdict.

However, Li apparently was unsatisfied with the sentence, as he suddenly grabbed a microphone and shouted in court that the plea bargain was not being carried out and his previous guilty confession was faked.

Li made a dramatic U-turn in two trials from being defensive to cooperative.

In the initial stage of his second trial, he surprisingly admitted evidence against him was "clear and sufficient" - compared to earlier urging 160,000 Chinese lawyers to appeal for him - and acknowledged his acts "stained the role of lawyers" and he "lacked the ethics an outstanding lawyer should have".

He even said he would not accept interviews from media, and would never retract his confession.

Li's defense lawyer Gao Zicheng told China Daily yesterday that "it is the plea bargain (which is not allowed in China's law) between Li and some senior officials that tricked Li into pleading guilty, but consequently the innocent man was sentenced".

"On Monday evening, when I asked why he confessed, risking his dignity and the case, he said he had met with senior officials who promised he would get a reprieve if he pleaded guilty," Gao said.

In China, a reprieve longer than the sentence itself means the convict will not have to serve the sentence in jail.

"He said he was told that if he didn't do so, the sentence would remain unchanged."

"Today's sentence without reprieve surely failed Li's expectations, and the whole trial is a comedy, unjust and wrong," he said.

Li's family said they would apply for a rehearing of Li's case in higher courts, according to the lawyer.

However, a prosecutor denied that there had been any plea bargain deals.

Yesterday's ruling upheld all the convictions of the first trial, which was also held in the southwestern municipality. Li and his lawyers had earlier repeatedly said that the trial should not be held in Chongqing because the local judiciaries involved in the case against suspected gang boss Gong are also stakeholders in Li's case.

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