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China to release jailed New York Times news assistant+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, March 17_(Kyodo) _ Chinese authorities will release former New York Times news assistant Zhao Yan from jail after 19 months because prosecutors have dropped charges of fraud and leaking state secrets, an associate said Friday. Zhao, 44, will leave his cell in Beijing over the next few days and may resume working in the news field, said Yu Meisun, a Beijing writer and former colleague of Zhao. "The criminal charge didn't hold up, so he can go," said Yu, who was told by Zhao's former work unit of the release. "This was done according to law, just as it would be done in America or Japan." The move comes ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington in April. The U.S. government has repeatedly raised Zhao's case with Chinese authorities. Zhao began working as a news assistant in the New York Times Beijing bureau in May 2004. Previously he worked as a reporter for the magazine China Reform. He specialized in covering impoverished rural China, home to 800 million people, and followed sensitive topics such as land seizures and village recall elections. Just before his capture, Zhao had been looking into the case of a Fujian Province farmer carrying out a hunger strike to protest the loss of his land. On Sept. 16, 2004, Zhao was detained in Shanghai. In October that year he was charged with leaking state secrets to foreigners, and on May 20, 2005, the Beijing No. 2 Procuratorate Office indicted Zhao for fraud as well as the state secrets charge. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespeople had said Zhao's case was being handled according to law despite waits in custody that violated due process rules. They declined to say what secrets he had allegedly released to whom. Initial reports in 2004 said Zhao was accused of leading the New York Times to an exclusive story on the final resignation of former Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, but later reports said the Jiang piece was not a factor. The New York Times Beijing bureau declined to comment Friday on Zhao's case. Yu said Zhao's release is consistent with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's statements at his annual press conference Tuesday though not necessarily directly linked to the jail release. Wen conceded failures in Chinese rural policies and said dissident issues should be handled according to law. It's not clear what Zhao's mood will be or what exactly what he will do after leaving jail, Yu said. |