Former Palestinian diplomat jailed in China for smuggling cars
Beijing court recommends that envoy be expelled from China after his term
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 17 February, 2016, 10:28pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 17 February, 2016, 10:28pm
Gloria Chan
[email protected]
Mohammed Ramadan, a former first secretary at the Palestinian embassy in Beijing.
A Chinese court in Beijing sentenced a former Palestinian diplomat to five years in jail for smuggling cars into China and recommended that he be expelled from the country after his term, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
Mohammed Ramadan, a former first secretary at the Palestinian embassy in Beijing, was found guilty of smuggling 12 cars into the country between 2007 and 2012, the report said.
He was also fined 1 million yuan (HK$1.2 million).
According to the prosecution, the defendant brought the cars into China by claiming they were for the personal use of staff at other embassies in the capital. He avoided paying more than 12 million yuan in customs duties in the process, the report said.
But the defendant denied the charges, saying he was only a middle man between Chinese buyers and embassy staff in eight of the cases and did not intend to smuggle the vehicles, according to the report. He did not know about the details of the other four cases because he only introduced the parties, the report said.
The court was not named in the report.
Ramadan was stripped of his diplomatic privileges and sacked before his arrest by Beijing Customs’ officials on September 12, 2014.
One buyer, surnamed Han, testified that he met Ramadan in 2010 through a friend identified as Liu, the report said.
Han wanted to buy a Land Rover and understood that Ramadan could obtain one of the luxury cars with embassy plates for 2.2 million yuan – 440,000 yuan less than it would normally cost.
In early 2011, Han paid Liu in cash and received the car the same day. Liu obtained an embassy identification card for Han later that year. Han told the court that he did not ask why the car was cheaper and believed that the transaction was legal.
Another witness surnamed Zhang, who worked at Beijing-based logistics firm Sinotrans & CSC, told the court that from 2006 to 2014 Ramadan asked his company to transport several imported cars from Tianjin to Beijing each year, the report said.
The vehicles included BMWs and Land Rovers.
The Palestinian embassy could not be reached for comment last night.
