China Frees U.S. Citizen
NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Oct. 27, 2003
BEIJING – A U.S. citizen who received a five-year prison term for obtaining state secrets and giving bribes was deported Monday after serving 1 1/2 years of his sentence, the government said.
Fong Fuming "has had his sentence reduced and was deported from China," the official Xinhua News Agency said in a brief statement Monday night. It cited Fong's "repentant behavior in jail."
Fong, of West Orange, N.J., is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a former Chinese power official. He was 67 when he was sentenced in March 2002. At that time, he was said to be in poor health.
The U.S. government protested Fong's detention before his trial and said Chinese authorities violated international standards by holding him for months without indicting him.
Fong's case was unusual in that, unlike many others in China involving American citizens or permanent residents, it hinged not upon political accusations but upon business practices.
Fong's attorneys said he was originally detained on Feb. 28, 2000. But the government has given the detention date as Aug. 28, 2000. Either way, he has been in Chinese custody for more than three years.
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