Murder allegations spur secondary autopsy of Chinese dissident

Chinese dissident Zhang Jian (left), ChinaAid President Bob Fu (center), and human rights activist Chen Yan (right) shortly before Zhang’s death. (Photo: ChinaAid)

ChinaAid


(Munich—May 25, 2019) A German court has ordered a new autopsy of a Chinese dissident who died in a Munich hospital last month after allegations surfaced that he had been murdered.

Zhang Jian, a Chinese dissident living in France, boarded a flight from Oman to Paris on April 23 shortly after he vanished during a trip to Thailand. Mid-flight, he began experiencing sudden health complications, and the plane made an emergency landing in Munich so that he could be rushed to the hospital, where he died.

Initially, the doctor ruled his cause of death unknown, but fellow exiled Chinese dissidents claimed that he might have murdered for his participating in human rights cases such as the Tiananmen Square protests.

Many experts have linked Zhang’s death to the suspicious passing away of other Chinese human rights activists, who are believed to have been murdered by the Chinese regime. This includes human rights lawyer Li Baiguang, who entered a Chinese hospital in February 2018 complaining of stomach pain and was mysteriously dead hours later.

In addition, Thomas Rauscher, a spokesperson for the prosecution organization handling Zhang’s case, told the German news source Frankfurter Rundschau that Zhang had died of poisoning.

Given this new information, a German court has ordered a secondary autopsy.