China says it will accept evidence in man's appeal

By KARL SCHOENBERGER
MERCURY NEWS
November 5, 2003

In a potential breakthrough in the case of a jailed Bay Area businessman, the Chinese government has signaled that Jude Shao can submit new evidence to appeal his 1999 conviction for tax fraud.

Shao, a Stanford MBA who was the subject of a Mercury News report and editorial in July, is serving 16 years in a Shanghai prison. He says he was denied due process during his trial.

His attempts to appeal and submit exculpatory evidence to the Shanghai High Court have been rejected so far. Likewise, Shao's attorneys say his petitions to China's Supreme Court have been ignored, despite the opinion of an independent panel of Chinese legal scholars that the case should be retried.

The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco said that in response to the Mercury News coverage, it had asked China's Justice Department to look into Shao's case, and that the Justice Department found the Shanghai High Court had not received the ``three pieces'' of evidence Shao claims he submitted to the court in 2001 -- records from his San Francisco-based China Business Ventures that he says refute the tax-fraud charges. But the consulate's statement -- quietly released in August -- also says that ``if Shao provides these three pieces of new evidence and also makes an appeal directly to the court, the court will adjudicate in accordance with law.''

The consulate released its statement, in Chinese only, on Aug. 20. One of Shao's Stanford classmates found the document on the Internet while doing research for his group, which is advocating Shao's release, and had it translated into English.

Chinese Consulate information officer Lei Hong confirmed the accuracy of the translation and said it was an oversight that an official English-language version had not been posted on the consulate's Web site.

Shao, imprisoned at Shanghai's Qing Pu Prison, was informed of the consulate's statement, and responded in a message conveyed by his family. He said that ``face-saving rhetoric aside, the statement may contain an unusual message from the Shanghai High Court; that is, that the court wants me to appeal to them again.''

He added, ``I am not sure if it is a wise thing to do now, but this statement is the first official response we have ever gotten out of the Chinese government since the campaign started.''

John Kamm, a San Francisco business consultant who lobbies on behalf of prisoners of conscience in China, said the development comes as Shao and his supporters are shifting their strategy from fighting the Chinese justice system head on to seeking his early release on medical grounds.

In recent months Shao has been suffering ``severe headaches'' that the prison infirmary has been unable to treat, said Chuck Hoover, a Los Angeles businessman who heads the campaign for Shao's release.

``It's important to work both sides of the equation, both the political solution and the legal solution,'' Kamm said. ``They are not mutually exclusive. Jude can conceivably get early release for special circumstances and still try to exonerate himself in the Shanghai courts.''