Five high-ranking Chinese officials have been indicted in Spain for genocide and torture of Falun Gong practitioners.
As reported by The Epoch Times online and in Monday’s print edition, the five officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) include Jiang Zemin, the former top man in the Party, and Luo Gan, head of the notorious 610 Office, a nationwide secret police task force that has led the violent campaign against Falun Gong.
Additional details were announced Wednesday in a press release by the Falun Dafa Information Center, on behalf of the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF), which is heading the legal effort in Spain. Carlos Iglesias is the HRLF attorney on the case in Spain.
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“When one carries out the crime of genocide or torture, it is a crime against the international community as a whole and not only against Chinese citizens,” Iglesias said.
For committing the crime of genocide, the defendants face imprisonment for up to 20 years and may be economically liable to the victims for damages. Based on the magnitude of the crimes committed by the defendants, they are likely to face the maximum 20-year penalty for their crimes.
According to the press release, the defendants have 4-6 weeks to reply and could subsequently face extradition if they travel to a country that has an extradition treaty with Spain. The decision was taken under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows domestic courts to hear cases of genocide and crimes against humanity regardless of where they occur.
Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that was practiced by 100 million people in China before it was banned in July 1999 by the CCP. It was initially supported by the CCP as promoting health and social harmony, but was suddenly declared illegal and subsequently violently persecuted, largely on the decision of Jiang Zemin, one of the defendants in the case in Spain.
The court also took a historic step in being the first to legally recognize the persecution against Falun Gong as amounting to genocide.
