Wanting Qu, the Vancouver-based Chinese pop star and former girlfriend of the Canadian city’s married mayor, has issued an update on her mother’s long-delayed death-penalty case, saying she is “waiting in silence” because she believes Chinese law to be “perfect and righteous”.
Qu Zhang Mingjie, a former planning official in Harbin city, Heilongjiang, was arrested in 2014 and tried in July 2016 on charges of corruption, accused of embezzling about 350 million yuan (US$55 million) in a real estate scam which saw a state-owned corn farm transferred to a private firm for redevelopment in 2009. Chinese media said the deal left hundreds of workers, already living on the farm, in dire conditions, denied millions of yuan in compensation and with the heat to their dorms shut off in sub-zero conditions.
