China May Retry American

An American businessman sentenced to 16 years in prison in China on tax-evasion charges said Monday that a Chinese court had told him to file an appeal, suggesting justices might be willing to reconsider his conviction.

In an e-mail released by his family in California, Jude Shao said the Shanghai High Court had told him to send his case directly to the country’s highest court in Beijing.

Shao said his Chinese lawyers believed that a document issued by the Shanghai court telling him his case had been sent to the country’s high court in Beijing indicated that his appeal would be heard.

“I think this is a positive development,” wrote Shao, 41, who was arrested in April 1998.

The Chinese-born, naturalized U.S. citizen was convicted in March 2000 of tax evasion, sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $86,000.

A panel of Chinese legal experts who reviewed Shao’s case this year concluded he should get a new trial.

Shao, who said he was innocent, is being held in Qing Pu prison, west of Shanghai.

Officials at Shanghai’s High Court, contacted by phone, said the case was closed and that relevant legal documents were “not for public access.”

The U.S. ambassador to China, Clark T. Randt, included Shao’s case in a list of Chinese “human rights abuses” in a speech in June to an audience of American businessmen.

Shao started a San Francisco company that sold medical equipment to Chinese hospitals.

Chinese tax auditors visited the company’s Shanghai office in 1997 to conduct what they called a “special tax audit.” They confiscated the company’s accounting books and later froze the firm’s accounts.

Shao has accused the auditors of demanding bribes and contends that he was convicted because he refused.