Imprisoned Hua Di to stand
trial soon, attorney reports
BY KATHLEEN O'TOOLE
Hua Di, the Stanford
University scholar imprisoned in China last year, will
stand trial soon but will not be prosecuted for charges
stemming from his work at Stanford or anywhere in the
United States or China, a Stanford colleague has learned.
Rather, the charges have to do with unspecified actions
that Hua allegedly took in a third country.
The information, relayed
to John Lewis, Stanford professor emeritus of political
science, originated with a Chinese lawyer who met with
Hua Di and the prosecutors assigned to his case. The
lawyer was allowed to meet with Hua in a Beijing prison
sometime before Feb. 15, Lewis said. The lawyer gave the
information to family members of Hua who passed it to
Lewis. There is no way for him to independently confirm
the information, Lewis said.
Related
Information:
Hua, a research associate
in Stanford's Center for International Security and
Cooperation (CISAC), was arrested by China's security
police on Jan. 6, 1998, when he went to Beijing for a
family memorial service. He was accused of leaking
unspecified state secrets. Hua's Stanford colleagues at
CISAC and University Provost Condoleezza Rice tried
through letters to find out the details of the
allegations and to demonstrate to Chinese officials that
his work at Stanford "adhered to the highest
standards of scholarly exchange of information" and
that his publications were based on documents publicly
available from libraries in the United States.
Lewis also has continued
to make trips to China on Hua's behalf. Lewis heads the
center's Project on Peace and Cooperation in the
Asian-Pacific Region, in which Hua worked. Together, they
wrote a history of China's missile program in which Hua
had been a high-ranking official before emigrating to the
Untied States.
"Our plea is that the
trial, which we are told will occur soon, be open fair
and just," Lewis said on Thursday, March 11.
"It is difficult for us to comment further or pursue
action because we do not know the nature of the charges
related to a third country. Hua's family has thanked us
for working to release Hua but said there is nothing more
we can do to help."
"There is reason for
some hope" that Hua will get an open trial with the
charges specified, Lewis said. "A number of
provincial-level governors and justice bureaus argue that
it is only with the rule of law that China can become a
truly modernized country. And just last week, Premier Zhu
Rongji made the rule of law a major theme of his 'Report
on the Work of the Government' to the National People's
Congress," Lewis said. But not all Chinese officials
are equally convinced of the importance of a law-based
system of justice, he said.
Hua is being held in
Dahongmen (Big Red Gate) Prison in the southern part of
Beijing, which is used for internment of prisoners before
court action, Lewis said. His trial may have been delayed
so far by a jurisdictional dispute between two district
courts and the prosecutors in Beijing. The case has now
been given to the Beijing Municipal Court, Lewis said.
(Beijing is a municipality with provincial status, and it
is subdivided into several districts.)
The lawyer who talked with
prosecutors said they also indicated that the charges
they would pursue had nothing to do with any of Hua's
published writing. They said the trial will be held soon.
"The family believes that this may mean by the end
of March, but we do not know this for sure," Lewis
said.
Lewis said the family had
no new information on Hua's health or whether he had
received any medical treatment during his more than 425
days in prison. He was being treated for cancer in the
United States just before his arrest. Hua is a permanent
resident of the United States but had not received
citizenship by the time of his arrest. SR
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