Probe launched into disappearance of crucial documents related to mining case

The Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee announced on its website on Tuesday night that it has launched an investigation into a high-profile case in which key materials related to a coal mining dispute were allegedly lost in an office of the country's top court.

The commission said the probe will be carried out together with the National Supervisory Commission and the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security.

The dispute happened between two organizations in Shaanxi province over the ownership of a coal mine, which reportedly has coal reserves worth 380 billion yuan ($55.6 billion), lasting 12 years in all. In December 2017, the Supreme People's Court delivered a final verdict on the case, overturning a previous ruling made by the Shaanxi Provincial High People's Court.

However, the case recently came under spotlight again as Cui Yongyuan, a famous former news anchor, said on social networking platform weibo that some of key documents of the case were lost in the office building of the Supreme People's Court and Cui attached photos of the "missing materials".

Cui also posted on the weibo account a video clip of a judge of the case, named Wang Linqing. Wang said in the video he was astonished by the fact that key documents of the case went missing in his office in the headquarters of the top court.

The top court later confirmed that the photos posted by Cui were the same as the missing documents.