Australian writer Yang Hengjun is given suspended death sentence in China
A Beijing court on Monday handed Australian writer Yang Hengjun a suspended death sentence, a family friend said.
SYDNEY — A Beijing court on Monday handed Australian writer Yang Hengjun a suspended death sentence, a family friend said, five years after he was first detained in China and three years after a closed-door trial on espionage charges.
Yang, a pro-democracy blogger, is an Australian citizen born in China who was working in New York before his arrest at Guangzhou airport in 2019. He had been accused of spying for a country China had not publicly identified and the details of the case against him are unknown.
Chinese Australian writer Yang Hengjun in 2010.Zhan Min / Imagine China / Reuters fileSydney-based scholar Feng Chongyi said a court on Monday delivered a suspended death sentence that would convert to life imprisonment after two years.
He said the verdict was relayed to him by Yang’s family in court.
It is a “serious case of injustice,” he said, adding Yang had denied the charges. He urged the Australian government to seek medical parole for Yang.
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