China Puts Cop Killer's Mom In Mental Home

A mother who disappeared the day after her son stabbed six Chinese police to death has been held for four months in a police-run mental hospital, her sister and a lawyer said Monday.

"I know a lot of truth, and the reason they locked me up is just to shut me up," Wang Jinmei told her sister Sunday, in her first contact with relatives since July when she said she was taken away by police.

Beijing lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan filed an emergency request with the Supreme People's Court in Beijing on Monday for an investigation into Wang's case. The court will also review the death sentence imposed on her son, Yang Jia.

Human rights groups have accused China of using mental hospitals as places to hold dissidents and other troublemakers.

Wang Jinrong said she and her sister couldn't speak openly during her Sunday meeting because they were being monitored, but she said Wang Jinmei indicated she believed her son had mental problems.

Yang, an unemployed 28-year-old, was found to be mentally sound during his trial. A request for further psychological testing was denied during his appeal, which he lost last month.

Yang has had a surprising amount of sympathy in China, where disgust over police behavior is widespread.

Yang has said Shanghai police beat him during an interrogation after they suspected him of stealing a bicycle. Police said his July 1 stabbing spree at a Shanghai police station was an act of revenge.

The highly sensitive case in China's largest city has been marked by closed hearings, local media bans and groups of Yang supporters shouting outside a Shanghai courthouse. Some of China's most outspoken artists and intellectuals have signed an online petition asking the country's leaders for an investigation into the case.

The disappearance of Yang's mother had also raised suspicions.

According to Wang Jinrong, her sister was forced while in the mental hospital to sign a contract to hire Yang's original lawyer. That lawyer was replaced after Yang's conviction when people criticized his apparent conflict of interest as legal adviser for the district where the police stabbings occurred.

Liu said the supreme court should investigate not only why Wang Jinmei was taken to the mental hospital in the first place, but also why someone judged to be mentally ill could sign such a contract and whether the supposed mental illness could be genetic and affect Yang as well.

Wang Jinrong said officials in her Beijing neighborhood told her only Friday that Wang Jinmei was being held in a mental hospital run by police in the city's Chaoyang District, where Wang Jinmei lives.

She was angry. "I've asked Chaoyang police several times since July where my sister is, but they never answered," Wang Jinrong said by phone Monday.

The meeting with her sister was short, she said.

"We were being watched by doctors and nurses. She just told me how eager she was to get out of there," Wang Jinrong said, adding that she didn't know when that might be possible.

Phone calls to the police-run mental hospital and the Chaoyang District police station that oversees the hospital rang unanswered Monday. Shanghai police also couldn't be reached and have said they will not comment on Yang's case.

Liu said the Supreme People's Court had not responded Monday evening to his request for an investigation.

It is unknown when the court will review Yang's death sentence. Even Yang's lawyer has said he might not be informed. Yang has no further appeals.

China's highest court started reviewing all death sentences last year in an attempt to reduce China's number of executions, the highest in the world. But officials there have said they're not required to give out information on the reviews.
By Associated Press Writer Cara Anna; AP researcher Ji Chen in Shanghai contributed to this report