9th Circuit Grills Prosecutors on Human Rights Issues Surrounding Chinese Witness in "Goldfish" Drug Case

On April 11, 1995, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held oral argument on the case of the so-called Goldfish heroin-smuggling case on the status of the Chinese national witness Wang Zong Xiao, who broke down during his testimony in a heroin trial to relate that his testimony was the result of torture and coercion by the Chinese prosecutors, ending his testimony and eventually after a civil action ordering that Wang not be returned to China. The appeal has a myriad of important issues including: dealing with the future of the interaction of international human rights and international criminal law; international criminal cooperation and drug diplomacy between China and the U.S.; the responsibility and accountability of the prosecutors in criminal cooperation cases; and the future of the career of the prosecutor involved in the Wang case…(more)