| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China Sparks Conflict Over Seized Briton |
| 2005-07-24 |
| BRITAIN and China are locked in a dispute over the fate of a British citizen who was caught up in a security investigation into the bugging of the president’s aeroplane and who now faces trial in Beijing on corruption charges. People familiar with the case say the man, Zhu Xiaogong, 52, became a British national while working in London from 1993 to 2004, initially for the overseas arm of China’s state-owned aviation equipment company. Inquiries by The Sunday Times in Hong Kong and London have established from company documents that Zhu became enmeshed in complex financial dealings in Britain with the full knowledge of senior figures in China and may have fallen victim to a political witch-hunt. The case threatens to become an embarrassment to the Chinese leadership because lawyers in Beijing believe the security services acted illegally in detaining Zhu and failed to recognise his British citizenship. It is casting a shadow over plans for a visit to China by Tony Blair in September. Zhu was seized while on a visit to Cambodia last year and extradited to China before British diplomats could intervene. He was due to appear at the Chaoyang district court in central Beijing on May 25 but the hearing was hastily adjourned when a British consular official appeared at the building, according to Chinese lawyers and reporters who were present. The prosecution alleges that he misappropriated public funds and took advantage of his job for personal interests. Details of the prosecution case were given in a report by the state-owned Beijing Youth Daily on May 10. Prosecutors allege Zhu had transferred more than £500,000 from the state aviation equipment company to another British-registered company between December 2000 and September 2001. However, the charges stem from one of the most sensitive investigations carried out by the Chinese security services in recent years, which makes the case much more than a routine corruption trial. The Communist party leadership ordered a sweeping probe into the aviation business in January 2002 after technical experts discovered a Boeing 767 plane bought for the personal use of Jiang Zemin, then president, was riddled with electronic listening devices. Initially the Chinese suspected the CIA of installing the devices while the plane was fitted out in the United States. But Jiang suspected that political rivals were behind the bugging plot and the security services were unleashed to dig into China’s aviation procurement apparatus overseas. Zhu, who served as manager of its London office between 1993 and 2002, was not implicated in the bugging. Instead, state media reports indicate he was fingered by a senior manager in Beijing, Xu Deng Yin, who confessed about a range of alleged malpractices that came to light in the investigation. The prosecution alleges Zhu and Xu acted together in illegally diverting public funds for their own use. Documents at Companies House in London show that both men were registered as directors of Galaxy Trade (UK), along with five other senior figures in the Chinese aviation industry, whose addresses have been identified as buildings in the management compound at Beijing airport. The purpose of Galaxy Trade was apparently to act as a trading and investment vehicle using funds from the state aviation industry. Zhu left the state aviation equipment company in April 2002 and the documents show he resigned from Galaxy Trade (UK) at the beginning of May. The company was dissolved in 2003. He went into business on his own account in London and did not return to China. In December 2003, Zhu was granted British citizenship, say people close to the case. A copy of his British passport and papers relating to his naturalisation as a Briton are in the possession of the defence lawyers. In July 2004, Zhu visited Cambodia on his British passport. There he was arrested at the behest of the Chinese embassy and rushed through an extradition process before being flown back to Beijing accompanied by security agents. Since then, Zhu has languished in detention while his family and lawyers seek to prove that the Chinese authorities have committed an international blunder by arresting him. People familiar with the case say the British embassy has made three formal approaches on Zhu’s behalf to the Chinese government. The Foreign Office declined to comment. If the case comes to trial, it is understood the defence will argue that Zhu did not misappropriate the funds but invested them on behalf of the state aviation company and sent the capital and profits back to China. The Chinese media have so far presented the case as an example of the government’s determination to strike at official corruption, a showpiece for the long arm of the law. Instead, it may turn out to be a perfect example of what is wrong with China’s legal system. |
| Posted by:rkb |