Prisoner Seeking Medical Parole

By KARL SCHOENBERGER
MERCURY NEWS
July 30, 2004

The family of Jude Shao, the Stanford MBA serving a 16-year sentence in China for alleged tax fraud, has petitioned Shanghai prison officials seeking medical parole on grounds he is suffering from a heart ailment and needs urgent medical attention in the United States.

The move signals a new strategy for Shao, 42, a U.S. citizen who was convicted in a summary trial in 1998. The San Francisco-based businessman adamantly maintains his innocence and has vowed to gain freedom by fighting the Chinese court system. His cause has been taken up by U.S. diplomats, human rights advocacy groups and his Stanford classmates.

Shao's prospects appear bleak. The Chinese Supreme Court has not acknowledged his appeal for a retrial, and the Chinese lawyer representing him recently resigned, Shao's supporters said. The Shanghai native had resisted asking for a medical parole, but changed his mind as his health worsened, supporters said.

"He's spent the last six months trying to get proper treatment, but the prison system doesn't have the means of taking care of his health," said Chuck Hoover, a Stanford Business School classmate who heads the support group Free Jude Shao. "Jude is stoic and doesn't like to complain, but his family has seen the effects of six years of prison on his health."

Shao's mother, Guohui Lin, filed the petition for medical parole June 25, saying that despite efforts by prison doctors to treat him, "his ailment continues to worsen and his health deteriorates." Shao's former attorney had instructed supporters not to make the petition public before his resignation, Hoover said Thursday after releasing the document.

"This is good news," said John Kamm, director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group that aids prisoners trapped in the Chinese judicial system. "It's the most expeditious way to handle his situation, because the prison warden has the discretion to release a prisoner on medical grounds. It doesn't have to go through the courts."

Shao has served more than one-third of his 16-year prison term, making him eligible for medical parole, Kamm noted. "He can still fight for his innocence in the courts, even if he's out on medical parole," he said.

In an e-mail message from prison to Hoover, Shao described his illness as "severe headaches, constant insomnia, back pain -- all which can be attributed to insufficient blood circulations and lack of oxygen to the brain caused by a heart condition I have.

Shao said his heart "may have a potentially serious ailment" with symptoms of a low pulse and an irregular heartbeat. "The real cause for the congestive condition has not been determined," he wrote. "The clinic cannot treat it. Nor can the General Hospital of the Shanghai Prison Bureau. They do not have the necessary equipment and heart specialists.