China Sentences N.Y. Times Researcher to Three Years

A Chinese researcher for the New York Times was sentenced to three years in prison on fraud charges but was acquitted on the far more serious charge of leaking state secrets, his lawyer said today.

The outcome of the closely watched case suggests the Chinese government compromised in the face of international pressure. A state-secrets conviction could have led to a decade or more in jail under China’s often-opaque legal system.

Beijing has been under strong pressure from U.S. and European governments and international media groups to release Zhao Yan, 44, since he was detained in the fall of 2004. His arrest followed an exclusive report by the newspaper that former President Jiang Zemin planned to relinquish his post as head of the military.

The Chinese government is extremely sensitive about unauthorized disclosures on its inner workings, particularly where senior leaders are involved.

The researcher also had a history of human rights and social activism before joining the paper, which, analysts say, meant he was under police surveillance.

The New China News Agency said the fraud charge stemmed from an incident in 2001, which was before Zhao was hired by the New York Times. He was convicted of taking money on a false promise of interceding to get a man’s sentence thrown out, the agency said. Zhao, his lawyers and his family denied the charge.

“We welcome the court’s decision on the first charge, that there was not enough evidence proving Zhao leaked state secrets,” said Guan Anping, one of the newspaper’s lawyers in the case.

“That shows they did rule according to the law and that rule of law is becoming more established. We’re glad to see it,” the lawyer said. “But we don’t agree with the second [fraud] charge. We maintain Zhao is innocent.”

Because Zhao has already been detained for almost two years, he is scheduled for release in September 2007. His legal team said it was considering whether to appeal the decision, given that an appeal could take nearly a year.

Zhao’s family also expressed displeasure with the case, which had its share of legal irregularities, even by Chinese standards. At one point it appeared the charges had been dropped, only to be revived.

“I’m not satisfied with the verdict,” said Zhao Kun, the researcher’s older sister. “I think he’s completely innocent.”

Today’s decision follows by one day the handing down of a harsh four-year jail sentence in another case. Chen Guangcheng, 35, a blind civil rights activist, was convicted of “damaging property and disrupting traffic” after exposing thousands of forced abortions by authorities in Shandong province.

Taken together, the verdicts suggest that China can be marginally swayed by foreign appeals when a case has limited domestic impact, said Xiao Qiang, director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at UC Berkeley. When the state feels its control is challenged, however, Beijing all but ignores foreign opinion, he added.

“In those cases, international pressure means nothing,” he said.

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Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.