Chinese court: Hong Kong bookstore related people sentenced to 10 years in prison

Recently CNN.co.jp reported the following:

中国裁判所、香港書店関係者に禁錮１０年　外国へ情報提供で

2020.02.25 Tue posted at 18:58 JST

香港（ＣＮＮ） ２０１５年に失踪した香港の書店関係者５人のうちの１人でスウェーデン国籍の桂敏海氏（５５）が２５日、中国東部・寧波の裁判所で禁錮１０年の刑を言い渡された。

桂氏は外国に情報を提供した罪に問われて有罪を認め、上訴はしないと表明している。

１５年に行方不明になった５人はいずれも、中国の体制や習近平（シーチンピン）国家主席ら指導部に批判的な書籍を扱う香港の書店と出版社の関係者だった。

桂氏は中国東部出身で、１９９０年代初めにスウェーデン国籍を取得していた。１５年にタイの別荘で姿を消した後、中国の国営テレビに出演し、１０年以上前の飲酒運転を告白。禁錮２年の刑を言い渡されたが、服役前に逃亡していた。

１７年に再び姿を見せたが、１８年１月にスウェーデンの外交官と乗っていた電車内で、私服警官とみられるグループに拘束された。家族によると、桂氏は筋萎縮性側索硬化症（ＡＬＳ）と診断され、スウェーデン人医師の診察を受けるために北京の同国大使館に向かっていたという。

中国当局は同年２月に桂氏の拘束を認め、国内法に違反したためと説明した。

寧波の裁判所によると、桂氏は１８年に獄中で、中国国籍の回復を希望していたとされる。

Translation

HONG KONG (CNN) Mr. Gui Minhai (55), a Swedish citizen, was one of the five Hong Kong bookstore related people who had disappeared in 2015. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on 25th by a court in Ningbo, eastern China.

Mr. Gui Minhai had pleaded guilty of providing information abroad and had stated that he would not appeal.

All of the five people that went missing in 2015 were related to a Hong Kong bookstore, and its publisher who was dealing with a book that was critical of the Chinese system, and also Chairman Xi Jinping together with his leadership.

Mr. Gui came from eastern China and had acquired Swedish citizenship in the early 1990s. After disappearing at a villa in Thailand in 2015, he appeared on Chinese state TV and confessed to drunk driving more than 10 years ago. He had been sentenced to two years in prison, but escaped before serving time [for the drunk driving].

He reappeared in 2017, but in January 2018 while traveling on a train with a Swedish diplomat he was detained by a group of people believed to be plainclothes police. According to his family, Mr. Gui was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and was heading to the Swedish embassy in Beijing to see a Swedish doctor.

Chinese authorities acknowledged Mr. Gui’s detention in February of the same year and said he had violated domestic law.

According to a Ningbo court, while in prison in 2018 Mr. Gui expressed his hope to reinstate his Chinese nationality.

Comments

              The way how Mr. Gui disappeared at a villa in Thailand in 2015 and subsequently showed up China in the custody of the Chinese authority is still a mystery. In the same year in late 2015, one of Mr. Gui’s colleague, Mr. Lam Wing-kee, had also disappeared in Hong Kong SAR. He subsequently showed up China and under the custody of the Chinese authority. These two (kidnapping and trial?) cases demonstrate that China could arrest ethnic Chinese who are residing outside China's legal jurisdiction if they were critical of the CCP.