month on charges of murder and fraud, sources close to the case said Tuesday, November 14.
"We are closely monitoring the progress of this case," said Rev. Bob Fu, the president of China Aid Association (CAA), which represents and supports Chinese Christians allegedly persecuted for their faith.
Prosecutors accused the Three Grades Servants of "brutally murdering" former members who left to join Eastern Lightning, a rival Christian-inspired sect that was founded in central China’s Henan province.
In July the court in Shuangyashan in northeast China’s Heilongjiang ordered the execution of Xu Shuangfu, the 60-year-old founder of the ‘Three Grades of Servants’, or Church of Truth, and members Li Maoxing and Wang Jun.
LIFE SENTENCES
Judges also ordered likely life sentences for three other members of the controversial underground religion. Eleven other followers received prison sentences from three to 15 years.However CAA said it has learned that amid pressure, the Heilongjiang Higher People’s Court has re-tried the case last month, but apparently without a different outcome.
"In December it is very possible that the death sentence issued by the Shuang Yashan Intermediate People’s Court in the first trial will be upheld," CAA investigators said in a statement. 15 of the 16 defendants reportedly appealed for the second trial.
Chinese witnesses of the October 17-19 hearings said the court allowed only one relative of each suspected criminal to be present at the trial, but some 100 people, including apparently Religious Affairs officials were in the audience.
MENTALLY "WELL"
"Xu seemed physically and mentally well during the trial," CAA said. His defense team has argued that there is no evidence that Xu the other two church leaders "were directly involved or took part in organizing and abetting the murder of the members" of the rival Eastern Lightening religious group.
"We appeal to the Heilongjiang Higher People’s Court to try this case in a just and fair manor according to the Chinese Constitution," Fu told BosNewsLife, despite the controversy surrounding the group.
Although the ‘Three Grades Servants’ claim to be Christians and with Bible as their guideline, the sect is considered a heresy by mainstream house churches in China because of what they consider as its "extreme doctrine."
EASTERN CONCERN
They have also expressed concerns about the Eastern Lightning group, which was by a woman named Zheng, who claims to be China’s female reincarnation of Jesus Christ. The organization "is widely acknowledged by house churches to be a cult and a criminal religious group," CAA added.
CAA has however expressed concerns over the possibility of executions and the fairness of the trial. "According to an amendment passed by the 24th Conference of the Chinese Standing Committee of the People’s National Congress, beginning January 2007, the Chinese Supreme Court can reverse a Provincial Court’s death sentence," CAA said.
"Unfortunately the mid-December verdict date for Xu falls two or three weeks prior to the effective date of the new procedure. So if the death sentences are upheld in the second trial, Xu and the others will face execution," the group added.
Other human rights groups, including Amnesty International (AI), have criticized China for upholding death sentences. At least about 2,000 people are executed in China annually, according to human rights watchers. "In China, the death penalty targets poor and marginalized groups including ethnic minorities, migrant communities, political dissidents, and so called "separatists"," AI said in a report. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and BosNewsLife Research).
