Scholar Hua Di's
conviction overturned on appeal in China
BY KATHLEEN O'TOOLE
Stanford scholar Hua Di,
who was sentenced late last year to 15 years in a Chinese
prison, has had his conviction overturned on an appeal to
the Beijing Higher People's Court. He had been accused of
"leaking state secrets."
Stanford University
President Gerhard Casper said April 4 that "we
learned several days ago that the Beijing higher-level
court has decided to return Hua Di's case to the lower
courts for retrial, and we are pleased with this latest
development."
Casper added that
"several of our faculty continue to make quiet
representations on Mr. Hua's behalf, and the Chinese
response has been that the case is now in a 'delicate
phase.' In the meantime, we continue to be concerned
about the state of Mr. Hua's health and are hopeful that
he is receiving appropriate medical attention."
Related
Information:
Hua, a research associate
at the Center for International Security and Cooperation,
is a Chinese citizen with permanent U.S. residency. He
has been imprisoned for 27 months since his January 1998
arrest on a visit to China. He had been undergoing
treatment for breast cancer at Stanford before his
arrest.
Song Yongyi, a librarian
at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, who was imprisoned
in a cell next to Hua's before the Chinese released him,
said during a recent visit to Stanford that other
prisoners in the same detention facility had told him
Hua's health was not good. He said also that he believed
Hua's conviction did not agree with China's written
criminal procedure laws.
"Basically the court
agreed with one of the grounds on which Hua Di appealed,
which was that the evidence used to convict him was
insufficient or inadequate, or what the court calls
unclear," said Professor Emeritus John Lewis, who
worked closely with Hua.
Stanford colleagues have
been trying to get Hua medical attention and have made
sure the family in China has his medical records. Former
Provost Condoleezza Rice and Lewis have said that Hua's
publications were based on publicly available documents.
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