Researcher for Times in China Will Appeal Fraud Conviction – Jim Yardley

From the New York Times:

A Chinese researcher for The New York Times, sentenced to three years in prison for fraud, decided Monday to appeal his conviction, one of his lawyers said.

Zhao Yan, 44, who worked in The Times’s Beijing bureau, won a victory on Aug. 25 when a Beijing court dismissed the more serious charge against him of leaking state secrets to the newspaper. But the court convicted him of a lesser, unrelated fraud charge that dated to 2001, when he worked as a journalist for a Chinese publication.

Mr. Zhao, who has been in detention for nearly two years, has repeatedly denied both charges. On Monday, Guan Anping, a defense lawyer, described the fraud conviction as “absurd” and said the court’s refusal to allow defense witnesses to testify on Mr. Zhao’s behalf was “definitely a major procedural problem.” [Full Text]

See a brief history of Zhao Yan case