http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/asia/chinese-court-sentences-ai-weiweis-lawyer-to-12-years-for-fraud.html 2016-09-22 06:35:11 Chinese Court Sentences Ai Weiwei’s Lawyer to 12 Years for Fraud Xia Lin, a Beijing rights lawyer, called the case part of China’s campaign to silence lawyers who have challenged arbitrary state power. === BEIJING — A Beijing lawyer whose clients included the artist The lawyer, Xia Lin, and his wife and supporters strongly rejected the prosecutors’ claim that he had defrauded people, and said the case was part of the government’s campaign to silence Chinese rights lawyers who have challenged arbitrary state power. There had been little doubt that the court in Beijing would declare Mr. Xia guilty: Defendants in politically sensitive cases rarely, if ever, walk free in Even so, the heavy sentence came as a shock to his lawyers and supporters. “After he heard the verdict, Xia Lin said the case had been procedurally unfair and he was being persecuted for his rights defense work, for the cases he took on,” one of his defense lawyers, Ding Xikui, who was in the court for the verdict, said in an interview. “He’s planning to appeal.” Before his detention nearly two years ago, Mr. Xia, 46, frequently represented clients who were at odds with the authorities. They included Mr. Ai, the artist-provocateur whose works often dwell on censorship and oppression. Mr. Xia Mr. Xia was Mr. Xia “never altered his initial intentions,” Mr. Guo The charges against Mr. Xia were prosaic by comparison. The judge said that he had defrauded four people of 4.8 million renminbi, equal to about $720,000, said Mr. Ding, the lawyer. Mr. Xia and his supporters said that the funds were legitimate loans and that the charge was a reprisal for his combative legal work. Mr. Xia’s prison sentence is the latest in a string of convictions of Chinese lawyers who have been engaged in human rights cases. Starting in July of last year, Chinese police rounded up hundreds of lawyers and rights activists as part of a crackdown centered on a law firm in Beijing that was accused of fanning social discontent against the ruling Communist Party. Most were later released. But in early August, This week, more than 100 Chinese lawyers The letter said that the abuses had “deviated from the course of legality, destroyed legal order and thoroughly disappointed people’s hopes in the government.”