Gao Yixi - 高一喜
(Minghui.org) A 45-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Mudanjiang City died after only ten days in police custody. Police performed an autopsy without the family's consent and refused to give the family the results.
Understandably suspicious, the family demanded a second autopsy. The wife of the deceased practitioner was arrested, and is now being held at an unknown location.
The police threatened the family that her situation would be “in jeopardy” if they kept pressing for a second autopsy. Using her as leverage, the police pushed for a hasty cremation.
These devastating events began when police broke into the home of Mr. Gao Yixi and his wife, Ms. Sun Fengxia, around midnight on April 19. The two were arrested for resisting the persecution of Falun Gong.
Death in Custody
Ten days later, on April 30, the police informed the family that Mr. Gao had died. When they saw his body, his family noticed that his chest protruded and his abdomen was sharply sunken. There were handcuff marks on his wrists.
Suspicious, Mr. Gao’s family hired a lawyer to investigate. They and the attorney visited the detention center and asked for the original and final reports of the autopsy on June 23, but were unsuccessful.
Detention authorities sent them to a hospital forensic lab, where they received the runaround before eventually getting copies of the reports.
The reports stated that Mr. Gao was in perfect health when he entered the detention center. Once there, Mr. Gao was reported to have coronary heart disease, a bleeding liver, a swollen kidney, and atrophy of the spleen.
The family asked the person in charge how this could have happened to Mr. Gao. The person was visibly shaking, and refused to look them in the eye or respond.
When the family and lawyer asked to see Ms. Sun at the detention center, they were told that she wasn't in the facility at the moment. They decided to wait.
The family waited for more than an hour under police surveillance.
After the family and lawyer saw Ms. Sun, the lawyer took her deposition. She claimed that she signed her husband's autopsy report without seeing the autopsy being done.
The family questioned the detention center authorities on why they did not inform the family when Mr. Gao was in critical condition and were met with silence.
The director of the forensic lab told them that the results of a second autopsy would not be any different from the first one, and that Ms. Sun would only be released when Mr. Gao's body was cremated.
