China Gives Times Researcher 3 Years

By Jim Yardley and Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
August 25, 2006

BEIJING, Friday, Aug. 25 — A Beijing court on Friday morning unexpectedly dismissed a state secrets charge against a researcher for The New York Times but sentenced him to three years in prison on a lesser, unrelated charge of fraud.

The verdict against the researcher, Zhao Yan, 44, spared him a prison sentence of 10 years or longer and also served as a blunt rebuke to the investigation by state security agents. Agents began detaining Mr. Zhao almost two years ago and accused him of leaking state secrets to The Times. He has consistently stated that he is innocent of both charges.

In another closely watched case, a Chinese court in Shandong Province on Thursday convicted an advocate for peasants rights and sentenced him to more than four years in prison. The advocate, Chen Guangcheng, is a blind man who tried to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of women who were subjected to forced abortions. His case, like that of Mr. Zhao’s, was considered a test of China’s legal system, and his defense team described the conviction as a sham.

In Mr. Zhao’s case, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court rejected the state secrets charge in strong language in a 10-page verdict released Friday morning.

“On the charge against the defendant Zhao Yan that he provided state secrets abroad, the evidence is insufficient,” the court ruling read. “The charge for this crime cannot stand, and this court does not accept it.”

Mr. Zhao’s lead defense lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said, “This is the way they proclaim someone innocent.”

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On Thursday, Mr. Chen, the rights advocate, was convicted of destroying property and organizing a mob to block traffic. He earned the enmity of local Communist Party leaders in Shandong Province, in eastern China, when he sought to organize a class-action lawsuit against forced abortions and sterilizations there.

The New China News Agency announced the sentence, four years and three months, in a terse dispatch on its English-language news wire. The information did not appear in Chinese, and other state-run media have been banned from reporting on the matter.

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