A Chinese researcher for the New York Times may appear in court as early as next week to appeal his conviction on a fraud charge, but his legal team is worried that it will be unable to call witnesses, submit evidence or provide him with adequate representation.
Guan Anping (
Guan said he and another lawyer representing Zhao had not yet been notified and were hurriedly trying to prepare.
Under Chinese law, the High Court of Beijing must inform defense lawyers at least three days in advance of the appeal hearing. Guan said he had asked the court several times in recent weeks about the status of the case. Last Friday, court officials told him they had agreed to hear the appeal but had not yet set a date.
Officials with the appeals court could not be reached for comment.
Guan said if the court did sched-ule the appeal for next week, he was concerned that arranging for witnesses and preparing the case so soon after the national holiday would present a logistical challenge.
He also said the court had not yet clarified whether Zhao's legal team would be allowed to present a robust case by calling witnesses and presenting evidence to rebut the prosecution's case.
"My first concern is that we probably won't be allowed to call witnesses," Guan said.
The case of Zhao, 44, a researcher in the Times' Beijing bureau, attracted attention around the world after Chinese state security agents detained him in 2004 and accused him of leaking state secrets to the newspaper.
In August, Zhao won a victory when a Beijing court dismissed the state secrets charge as lacking merit. But the Beijing No.2 People's Intermediate Court convicted Zhao of a lesser, unrelated charge, accus-ing him of fraud at a time that pre-dated his work at the Times, and sentenced him to three years.
Zhao has already spent more than two years in detention and his release is currently scheduled for next September.
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