Agence France-Presse
Copyright 2003

Monday, February 10, 2003

CORRECTION: ATTENTION - ADDS official confirmation, reax from daughter, Free China Movement

BEIJING, Feb 10 (AFP) - US-based Chinese democracy activist Wang Bingzhang was Monday sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of espionage and leading a terrorist group, state pressand a court official said.

The sentence was handed down in the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, the Xinhua news agency reported. A court official confirmed the sentencing.

China in December said it had arrested Wang, 55, for espionage and engaging in "violent terrorist activities", claiming he had been in contact with Taiwan's espionage organizations since the early 1980s and was paid by them for collecting "state secrets."

Friends said he was kidnapped in June from Vietnam near the China border, where he tried to meet with Chinese labor activists, and was brought into the country.

Wang's daughter Wang Qingyan told AFP from her home in Los Angeles she was devastated by the news.

"I hope I can learn more soon. I applied to the Chinese government to meet my father but they refused," she said.

I haven't been able to reach my father. My father is not in a very good physical condition and I really hope he can come home to the United States so I can take care of him."

Free China Movement international director Timothy Cooper called the sentence "shameful".

"We deeply regret the severe sentence handed down," he told AFP from the group's Washington base.

"It is unjust and incomprehensible that a state that seeks to be part of the international community treats a democracy dissident insuch a shameful manner."

Wang is a permanent resident in the United States, but not a US citizen.

mp/nj

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