The lawyer for China's most wanted fugitive, Lai Changxing,...

The lawyer for China's most wanted fugitive, Lai Changxing, launched a withering attack on China's judicial system, branding it untrustworthy and unfair.
Top Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, who is defending alleged smuggling kingpin Lai Changxing and his wife, Tsang Mingna, against a bid by Canada to have them sent back to China for trial, also accused Beijing of lying.
He said proof that the mainland system was unfair was not hard to find. "It's like trying to convince you that the Rocky Mountains are made of rock, or at least are mountains."
Matas made his stinging attack as lawyers began their final arguments at the end of a four-month hearing in a Vancouver refugee court.
Beijing alleges Lai, 42, and his wife, 36, were at the head of the mainland's biggest smuggling racket in the republic's 52-year history. It is claimed the scandal linked to the Yuan Hua company raked in $23.5 billion by using a network of corrupt officials to smuggle everything from cars to cigarettes throughout the 1990s. Several officials have already been executed on the mainland in connection with the racket.
Matas reminded the two-member refugee court panel that Premier Zhu Rongji had said executing Lai 10 times over would not be enough.
Matas rejected the Canadian Government's assertion that Lai and his wife would receive fair trials if deported. "It's common knowledge that the Chinese system is not fair," he said.
He dismissed as worthless a diplomatic note from Beijing pledging not to execute Lai to comply with a Canadian Supreme Court ruling against deportation of fugitives who faced the death penalty. "China has more to lose by not executing Lai," he said, adding that there was little Canada could do if Beijing reneged on the pledge.
Lai and Tsang fled Hong Kong for Vancouver with their three children in 1999, allegedly to avoid arrest.