(14 Jul 2001)
1. Wide shot court exterior
2. Various security around the court
3. Tracking shot of the court
4. Various soldiers
5. Wide shot police van arriving at court (thought to be carrying Li Shaomin)
6. More of security
7. Close up of Chinese flag
8. Wide shot court exterior
FILE
9. Still of Li Shaomin
10. Still of Gao Zhan, other detainee
STORYLINE:
A Beijing Intermediate People's Court convicted Chinese-American scholar Li Shaomin on Saturday on charges of spying and ordered his deportation, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
His arrest has strained relations with Washington.
Outside the courthouse on Saturday, about two dozen uniformed police and more in civilian clothes patrolled the area and watched for foreign media representatives.
When they spotted some reporters waiting nearby, they pointed and shouted.
But there was no attempt to detain the reporters or make them leave the area, as has occurred in previous trials of dissidents or spying suspects.
The Foreign Ministry said an American diplomat was allowed to attend the trial.
Li, who teaches at the City University of Hong Kong, is one of five Chinese-born intellectuals with U.S. ties who have been detained over the past year and accused of spying for Taiwan.
Li was the first to go on trial.
His detention on February 25 prompted outrage in Washington.
Congress passed a resolution last month demanding his release.
China specialists in Hong Kong issued a similar plea in May, saying the case made researchers uneasy about traveling to the mainland.
Li's was sentenced just hours after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics - giving credence to critics' accusations that human rights abuses made China an unsuitable country to stage the Olympic Games.
Other detainees include Gao Zhan, a sociologist at American University in Washington who was picked up on February 11 during a family visit to China.
Her husband says academic contacts with Taiwan might have attracted the attention of Beijing, but he insisted she wasn't involved in espionage.
China has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province since Nationalists fled there following the Communist seizure of power in 1949.
Li, who has a Ph.D. from Princeton University, has lectured in China and worked as a United Nations adviser to Beijing.
Chinese authorities have not released any details of his case, but insist he confessed.
His wife, who also teaches in Hong Kong, has denied the accusations and says she doesn't even know what activities by her husband might have been deemed suspicious.
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