Three American citizens imprisoned for years by China were released and will return to the United States, the White House said Wednesday, announcing a rare diplomatic agreement with Beijing in the final months of the Biden administration.
The three are Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leungall of them unjustly detained by the United States government. Swidan faced a death sentence for drug possession, while Li and Leung were jailed for espionage.
”They will soon return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” the White House said in a statement.
A U.S. official said the Biden administration had raised its cases with China in multiple meetings over the past few years, including earlier this month when President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the annual Economic Cooperation summit. Asia-Pacific in Peru.
The American was “kidnapped” on November 13, 2012 by officials from the Public Security Office during a work trip, according to that text, and formally detained in December of that year. accused of being part of a criminal conspiracy along with 11 other people to manufacture and traffic drugs.
In 2019, he was sentenced to the death penalty, a sentence that he appealed, and on April 13, the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court rejected the appeal filed by Swidan and kept his sentence suspended for two years.
The US legislators stressed in their resolution that no drugs were found in his hotel, that the other 11 individuals involved in this alleged conspiracy did not recognize him or that his passport shows that he was not in China at the time of the charges against him. .
John Shing-wan Leungholder of a US passport and permanent resident in Hong Kong, “He was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to life imprisonment and deprived of his political rights for life,” said the statement from the Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern city of Suzhou.
Suzhou authorities “took mandatory measures in accordance with the law” against Leung, 78, in April 2021, according to the statement, without specifying when exactly he was detained.
The court, which did not provide further details about the nature of the crimes committed by the convicted man, He also decreed the confiscation of personal property Leung worth 500,000 yuan ($71,000, 66,000 euros).
Li has been detained since 2016 and is serving a ten year sentence prison on espionage charges.
(with information from AP)
