British prosecutors denied on Monday that Chinese diplomats pressured them to charge a German student who threw a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), as his trial opened.
Wen could have been seriously injured if the shoe had hit him in the face, a policeman told the court in Cambridge.
Martin Jahnke, 27, a pathology postgraduate, is charged with pitching a trainer at Wen as he spoke at Cambridge University in February.
PUBLIC ORDER OFFENSE
Prosecutors say he behaved in a way “likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress,” but Jahnke denied a public order offense at a previous hearing.
The trial at Cambridge Magistrates Court is expected to last three days.
Wen was giving a lecture in Cambridge on Feb. 2, the last day of a European tour, when he was interrupted by a protester shouting “this is a scandal” and branding him a dictator.
The protester threw a sports shoe, which hit the stage close to the Chinese leader, and was then escorted out of the auditorium.
Prosecutor Caroline Allison described how the protest started when Jahnke, sitting at the back of the lecture theater, disrupted the speech by blowing a whistle.
“He was heard to say words to the effect that the university was prostituting themselves by allowing the premier to speak and referred to the premier as a dictator,” she said.
“Mr Jahnke’s behavior in shouting and blowing the whistle may have started off as lawful protest, but when he threw his shoe it became unreasonable behavior and an act of aggression,” she said.
A policeman assigned to guard Wen told the court: “If the shoe had struck the premier in the face it could have caused serious injury to his eye or to his nose.”
Immediately after the shoe was thrown, Wen described the action as “despicable.”
But he has since urged that the student be allowed to continue his studies at Cambridge and insisted that the incident would not harm ties with Britain.
MAXIMUM SENTENCE
The alleged offense is contrary to section four of the Public Order Act of 1986. If found guilty, Jahnke could face six months in prison and a £5,000 (US$7,400) fine as a maximum sentence.
As the trial opened in Cambridge, lawyers for the German student sought to have it halted on the grounds that the Chinese government had influenced the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and police to prosecute.
A CPS lawyer denied there had been any undue influence — despite the fact that police charged Jahnke without referring the case to the CPS — and judge Ken Sheraton ruled that the trial should go on.
Jahnke’s lawyer, Tom Wainwright, said British politicians — including business minister Peter Mandelson, who recently had green custard thrown at him — had been attacked in similar circumstances, but charges had not been brought.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in