China's highest criminal prosecution body has issued new
regulations detailing procedures for recording and videotaping
interrogations of people suspected of white-collar crime in a bid
to stamp out confessions extracted by torture.
According to the newly-released regulations by the Supreme
People's Procuratorate (SPP), interrogations should be recorded and
filmed live and in whole.
The recording should begin when the suspect enters the room for
questioning, and end after the suspect has checked the confession
transcript, signed his or her name and put a thumbprint on the
document, the regulations read.
The regulations specify that at fixed interrogation venues,
technicians must videotape the scene in Picture-in-Picture (PIP)
mode.
The suspect should be seen front on and occupy the center of the
main video picture so that his or her posture and expression can be
seen, as well as the time of recording, while the sub video picture
should present a panorama of the site.
In temporary questioning sites where PIP equipment is not
available, the video picture should mainly cover the suspect but
the recording time and the panorama should be shown from time to
time. The internal temperature and humidity and prosecutors at the
scene should be shown at the beginning, the regulations read.
Raw videotape materials must be put into a sealed bag after the
technicians, prosecutors and suspect have all put their thumbprint
to it.
The regulations also lay down the specific procedure for the
storage, copying, transfer and reception of recording and videotape
materials.
According to Chinese laws, it is the function of people's
procuratorates to investigate crimes at work such as corruption,
bribery and dereliction of duty.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate has embarked on a campaign to
clean up illegal interrogations. It decreed in March this year that
synchronous video and audio recordings shall be adopted during
interrogations in major cases, murder and gang crimes for instance,
by procuratorates at all levels.
As of October 1, 2007, procurators will make real-time videos of
all interrogations concerning job-related crimes, said sources with
the SPP.
(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2006)