Beijing mouthpiece releases images in apparent attempt to undercut confessed Chinese spy and defector William Wang Liqiang
- Global Times publishes screenshots of a purported confession during a 2016 fraud trial
- Wang, who has defected to Australia and is seeking political asylum, has reportedly identified senior Chinese military intelligence officers in Hong Kong
China’s state media on Wednesday released images it said were of a man who claims to be a Beijing-sponsored secret agent confessing to fraud, apparently in an attempt to discredit his assertion that he was involved in intelligence operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times uploaded screenshots from a court video in which William Wang Liqiang is allegedly making the confession in an October 2016 trial proceeding.
Global Times is a tabloid under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily, focusing on international issues.
Wang has defected to Australia and applied for political asylum there.
“[Wang] confessed his fraud case involving 120,000 yuan (US$17,000) in a Chinese court in 2016, admitting he had ‘a weak legal awareness’,” the tabloid said, adding that Chinese local court had sent the video exclusively to Global Times.
The publication did not include any part of the video in its report.
“Wang was tried in the People’s Court of Guangze county, Nanping, east China’s Fujian province, where he confessed to defrauding the sum, according to the video,” Global Times said.
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The report said Wang had defrauded a person surnamed Gao, whom he had met through his girlfriend, and quoted Chinese prosecutors.
“Wang defrauded Gao of 25,000 yuan on the grounds that he could help Gao handle the schooling but needed money. In August 2015, Wang again defrauded Gao of 130,000 yuan in the name of helping Gao invest in stocks,” the report said, without giving the alleged victim’s full name or explaining why those two amounts did not add up to the 120,000 yuan mentioned earlier.
Earlier this week, Shanghai police said that in October 2016, Wang had been given an 18-month suspended sentence for fraud by the Guangze county court in Fujian.
The police said Wang left for Hong Kong on April 10, carrying a fake Chinese passport and a forged Hong Kong permanent residence ID.
Wang denied the claims by the Shanghai police, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
The Global Times claim came after Australian news outlets reported that Wang had identified for Australian agencies the senior Chinese military intelligence officers in Hong Kong. Wang was also said to have provided details about how operations were funded and conducted in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
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Last week, Chinese police in Shenzhen also released a video “confession” of a former British consulate employee in Hong Kong, Simon Cheng Man-kit, who said he was tortured when he was detained in the border city in August.
The video, which was released through the Weibo microblogging account of People’s Daily, showed Cheng “confessing” to his interrogators that he felt ashamed of his wrongdoings and promising not to repeat the mistakes.
In an earlier statement and media interviews, Cheng said he had been “hung, handcuffed and shackled” and also beaten when he failed to comply.
