Disappeared: First photos of Chinese raid on jailed Aussie Cheng Lei’s apartment revealed

The aftermath of Chinese security officials’ raid on Aussie journalist Cheng Lei can be revealed for the first time. See the exclusive pictures inside her Beijing apartment.

For the first time, photos of Cheng Lei’s apartment taken just hours after her arrest by Chinese security officials, can be revealed.

Taken by her partner, Nick Coyle, they show the aftermath of the security service’s raid that saw them take her passport, laptop, mobile phone, and computer tower away for analysis.

The photos are just one of the revelations of The Daily Telegraph’s film, Disappeared: The Cheng Lei Story, which also feature harrowing details about how the journalist has been held since her arrest – including six months spent in the notorious black jails of China’s secretive Ministry of State Security.

“I spoke to her on the morning she was detained, we actually exchanged messages,” Mr Coyle said.

After she was arrested, Ms Cheng failed to show up to meet with Mr Coyle and other friends for drinks, which did not alarm her partner as her job in journalism meant that she could often wind up having to work long hours or be sent somewhere on assignment.

Australian-Chinese journalist Cheng Lei. Her shocking ordeal imprisoned in China is the subject of a new Daily Telegraph documentary.

Mr Coyle said that he discovered she was missing when he went to her Beijing apartment.

“Everything looked normal, I went into the bedroom, the bed was made,” he said, with photos revealing a comfortable, lived-in apartment with obvious gaps where items like the computer previously had been.

But it was when he noticed certain items missing that he realised something was very wrong and his suspicions were alerted.

“Then I noticed that the computer tower was missing,” he said.

“Then I went straight to the drawer where we kept passports and things like that.

“Her current passport was gone but her expired ones were still there so I had a good rummage around, her laptop was missing.

Shocking images of the Beijing apartment belonging to Australian journalist Cheng Lei have been released to the world.

The photos reveal the aftermath of the Chinese raid, including conspicuously missing items.

“It was obvious at that point she had been detained.

“A situation like this when it happens, I mean you never in a million years think that it will happen.”

Since Ms Cheng’s detention she has been unable to see her family, partner, or children, with her only contact with the outside world being 30-minute teleconference visits with Australian embassy officials who are able to bring her messages and books.

Ms Cheng’s arrest was also traumatic for her friends and co-workers at state-owned broadcaster CGTN.

Like many Australian journalists, Ms Cheng had found broadcast work overseas to be an important stepping stone in her career.

Officials seized Ms Cheng’s current passport, along with electronics.

“It was incredibly frightening,” said Emily Angwin, a co-worker of Ms Cheng at CGTN who now works for Al Jazeera.

“At the start we weren’t really sure what had happened, Cheng Lei was always on social media and WeChat,” she said, referring to a popular Chinese social media platform.

“So it was very unusual for us not to hear from her.

“Then suddenly I was sent a news article, I believe it was from one of the Australian media outlets saying that ‘Australian journalist Cheng Lei had been detained’.”

Asked about what the atmosphere was like for other foreign journalists at the time, Ms Angwin said, “it was incredibly concerning and worrying and all sorts of thoughts are going through your head.”

“She’s an Australian, I’m an Australian, I wasn’t sure if I could be next or one of my colleagues could up and disappear.”

Former co-worker Emily Angwin says Cheng Lei’s ordeal was frightening for her and other foreign journalists.

Ms Angwin said that she imagined that Ms Cheng would be “making the best of a bad situation”.

Since her arrest there has been little information about the specific charges laid against her, but in a press conference in September, 2020, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said simply that she had been detained as she was “suspected of carrying out illegal activities endangering China’s national security”.

Ms Angwin said that she imagined that the toughest thing for her friend would have to be being separated from her children, who currently live with a grandparent in Australia.

In letters to their mother revealed by The Daily Telegraph, they write of their love for their mother and promise to be strong and detail their daily lives.

In one, one of her children writes, “we had bubble tea today just like when we were last together. Everything reminds me of you and I miss you so much”.

Another said: “I will be strong soon, just like you taught me, please come home soon, I love you.”

Mr Coyle said: “They are getting on living their life as best they can, but not having their mother around is incredibly difficult.”