Li Zhuang, a Beijing defence lawyer from Kangda Law Firm, was sentenced to 18 months in prison at an appeal hearing in the Chongqing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court recently. He was accused of fabricating evidence for his gangster client Gong Gangmo and instructing him to lie in court during a trial.

The charges against Li were based on accusations levelled by Gong, who himself has been charged with the crimes of murder, drug trafficking, organised crime and gun-related charges.

In court, Li was enraged by his final sentence, albeit a one-year reduction from the original sentence earlier in January. After his sentence was announced, Li retracted his earlier admissions of guilt and accused local prosecutors of failing to honour a deal in which he would receive a suspended sentence in exchange for a guilty plea.

The case against Li, which has been seen largely as a part of Chongqing’s aggressive campaign to crack down on organised crimes, could set an important precedent. While the prosecution has been criticised by some legal experts, there has also been popular support for his guilty verdict.

Now closed, the controversial case continues to attract the attention and interests of many lawyers and has also appealed to the country's 160,000 lawyers to continue to struggle in defence of their rights in the handling of criminal cases. While many lawyers support the country’s campaign against organised crimes, they also insist that the fight against crime must not destroy procedural justice.

In a letter addressed to China’s top judicial officials, two Beijing lawyers wrote that Li’s prosecution raises questions of lawyers’ right to carry out their professional duties, and called for an official investigation into a range of other irregularities that have been cited in the Chongqing crackdown.

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