Top public prosecutors' office, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, announced Tuesday that a new regulation has been worked out to prevent the unlawful prolonged custody of criminal suspects.

Zhang Zhongfang, a spokesperson for the Procuratorate, said that by July 21, 359 unlawful prolonged detention cases had been redressed. And eight supervision groups were then dispatched to 24 provinces to look for any possible new cases.

To date, another 16 cases of unlawful prolonged custody were spotted again nationwide and all have been dealt with.

Zhang noted that in a bid to fundamentally eliminate unlawful extended detention, a long-term supervision system on law enforcement officials must be established.

The new regulation would require law enforcement officials to take a more prudent attitude when arresting criminal suspects. And if the criminal case could not be checked within the time limit of custody, law enforcement officials must free the criminal suspect or apply to extend the detention by strictly following the relevant law and regulations.

The regulation also requires that law enforcement departments conduct interrogation within 24 hours of arrest and should inform the suspects of the cause of detention, and tell the dates of the beginning and end of the detention to the suspect as well as his relatives or work unit, so that if the custody is unlawfully extended, relatives of the suspect could appeal.

According to the regulation, any law enforcement officers who abuse their power and cause a criminal suspect's detention to be illegally extended must bear disciplinary or criminal responsibility.

Zhang said the regulation helps build a long-term supervisory system which could protect the human rights of criminal suspects and demonstrates that China's judicial body not only devotes itself to cracking down on crime, but highly respects human rights.

It occurs sometimes that criminal suspects are held at detention centers until the court makes its final verdict. This means that the police, public prosecutors and judges could all illegally hold a suspect in custody for longer than is allowed.

The legal period of custody of criminal suspects ranges from 14 days to six-and-a-half-months from arrest to trial, according to China's Criminal Procedure Law.

As of last week, there were still more than 3,600 unlawfully prolonged custody cases existing in the country's detention centers, all of which are expected to be dealt with before the end of this year, according to the sources of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2003)