Han Ximin
AN executive of a high-tech company in Shenzhen was sentenced in the United States on Wednesday (U.S. time) to more than eight years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to illegally export American munitions and technology.
The U.S. federal district court in Massachusetts found Wu Zhenzhou, 46, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based Chitron Electronics, guilty of exporting parts on the U.S. Munitions List and restricted sensitive technology to China over a period of 10 years.
Wu was also ordered to pay a fine of US$15,000, a special assessment of US$1,700 and forfeit US$65,881.
Chitron Electronics had its U.S. base in Waltham and a statement from U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz s office said Wu had used the company to acquire and then ship military electronics and other restricted equipment to China. According to the statement, the equipment is used in electronic warfare, military radar, fire control, military guidance and control equipment, missile systems and satellite communications.
Wu, a Harvard MA graduate and founder of Shenzhen Chitron Electronics, was arrested Dec. 5, 2008, at Chicago s O Hare Airport while on his way to a Yale CEO leadership summit.
His ex-wife, Wei, an accountant at Chitron-U.S., and company manager Li Bo were also arrested the same day.
Wu and Wei were charged in a 32-count indictment with conspiring to violate U.S. export laws, illegally exporting defense articles and commerce-controlled electronics to China as well as filing false shipping documents with the U.S. Commerce Department.
Chitron Electronics was not available for comment.
Shi Huaifang, a lawyer on Wu s defense team, said the verdict was disappointing. He said he was discouraged by the way the U.S. court system operates.
The judge said in the court this had been the most complicated case in her 20-year legal practice. How could the jury, selected from common citizens without legal backgrounds, understand the whole case and deliver a fair verdict? he said.
The case was investigated by the Commerce Department s Office of Export Enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).
A Global Times reporter visited Wu at the Wyatt Detention Facility on May 9, where Wu said he did not care what the prosecutors had said or what the jury would decide because he believed he was innocent and insisted he was ignorant of the listed parts.
Garrick F. Cole, an attorney with Smith & Duggan LLP in Boston, told the Global Times that the vague U.S. export control regulations had put Wu and Wei at a disadvantage.
The export of certain components is currently governed by two interconnected but conflicting regulations issued by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commerce Department, Cole was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
The control regulations are a secret law that are put in a desk drawer and taken out only for use at a criminal trial, he said.
Liu Luxin, a professor with the Asian Studies Department at La Trobe University in Australia, was quoted as saying by the newspaper: The Chitron case shows that regulations on U.S. exports of high-tech products to China appear to be loosened but are actually tightened even further, and it also highlights the hostility of the conservatives in the U.S. Government toward China.
