Beijing: China sentenced a Beijing-based researcher on Friday to three years in jail for "fraud" but found insufficient evidence to prove that he leaked 'state secrets' related to a key Chinese leadership change in 2004 to The New York Times.
Zhao Yan was sentenced to three years in prison for fraud, the number two Intermediate People's Court of Beijing announced.
But, Zhao was found not guilty of releasing state secrets to the newspaper as the court felt the prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence to support the main charge.
The court also ordered Zhao, a Beijing-based civil rights campaigner-turned-journalist, to pay $250 in fines and to pay back $2,500 he had gained through fraudulent means.
Reacting to the court order, which found no evidence of spying, The New York Times Executive Editor said in a statement, "If the verdict is what it appears to be, we consider it a vindication. We have always said that to the best of our knowledge the only thing Zhao Yan committed is journalism."
Quoting court documents, the Xinhua reported that Zhao, a former reporter for the Beijing newspaper "Baixing Xinbao" had travelled to northeast China's Jilin Province in 2001 to investigate a story.
Zhao was following a story involving Feng Shanchen, who had been given a punishment of one and a half years in a labour camp by the local authorities in Songyuan City.
According to the document, Feng believed the penalty to be unjust and turned to Zhao for help.
Zhao reportedly lied that he had connections with the "Legislative Affairs Bureau of the State Council" and if Feng paid him $2532, he would be able to revoke the punishment. But Zhao is said to have taken the money but did not keep to his promise, the report claimed.
Zhao's sentence was announced after he had spent nearly two years in detention for allegedly of providing state secrets to The New York Times after it correctly reported in 2004 that Jiang Zemin would relinquish his sole remaining post as Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) to current President Hu Jintao, who is also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).
Zhao's sentence came hours after a prominent blind civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng was jailed yesterday by the People's Court of Yinan County, in east China's Shandong Province and human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was detained on August 18 in Beijing for "criminal activities".
Chen was sentenced to four years and three months in prison yesterday for damaging government property and disrupting traffic during a protest in his home village Dongshigu of Shandong Province in February.
Chen drew international attention last year by accusing officials in Shandong of enforcing late-term abortions during an over-ambitious population control drive.
Meanwhile, a journalist with Singapore's Straits Times, is also facing the wrath of China. Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist, was detained by Chinese security agents in April and later accused of spying for unidentified foreign intelligence agencies.
His detention sparked fears that Beijing is tightening its noose over media freedom in Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
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