The High Court of Tanzania has taken the next step in the lawsuit against Chinese official Chen Zheli, who is accused of murder and torture of Falun Gong practitioners during her tenure as education minister.
The court conducted a preliminary judicial review Dec. 7–16 in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam, and may issue a procedural decision during the week of Dec. 20.
A source with knowledge of the proceedings, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said that the evidence presented by the victims’ counsel is overwhelming in linking Chen to the allegations of the case.
Reportedly, documents related to the case went missing from the court records at one point prior to the judicial review. It was suspected that the documents were stolen, a tactic commonly seen in Africa to delay or terminate a case.
The court recovered the documents prior to the latest proceedings and conducted the judicial review based on these documents.
In a Dec. 13 article published in the Tanzanian newspaper The Guardian, the Tanzanian minister of foreign affairs said that the lawsuit did not exist. During the court proceedings, the defense denied any involvement in the publication of that article.
The source for this Epoch Times report noted that it is unusual for the foreign minister to make public remarks on a lawsuit pending before the judiciary, and speculated that the Chinese communist party, as in other cases, may have put pressure on the Tanzania government. In human rights cases filed in Australia and the United States, the Chinese communist party has sought to interfere with the countries’ judiciaries by demanding the governments terminate the lawsuits.
Chen was in Tanzania last July while leading a Chinese delegation that was visiting four African nations. The former Chinese minister of education and current state council member was served with legal papers in Dar es Salaam on July 19. The suit alleges murder and torture of Chinese teachers and students who practice Falun Gong. Chen was summoned and appeared before a judge on the same day.
