Chinese Man's Execution May Be Delayed

BEIJING, Nov. 28 -- A Chinese businessman convicted of spying for Taiwan has been granted a second visit with his family, a decision that was expected to delay his execution for at least several days, a diplomat here said Friday.

An Austrian government official said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had informed him Thursday that the family's request for a second visit had been granted. Austrian diplomats are following the case, because some of the family members are Austrian, but the official asked that his name be withheld because of the sensitive nature of negotiations in which he is involved.

European and U.S. officials and human rights groups have urged China's government to commute the sentence of Wo Weihan, 60, arguing that the case against him has procedural and legal flaws that merit reconsideration of his 2007 death sentence.

Wo's wife and one of his daughters, Austrian citizen Ran Chen, visited him Thursday morning for half an hour at the Second Intermediate People's Court in Beijing, for what they had assumed would be their final visit before his death. Chen said after the meeting that her father seemed to have no knowledge that China's highest court had refused to overturn his death sentence.

"We went in there expecting to say goodbye to him forever, and he didn't know anything," Chen said. "That was very difficult for us." She added that he had not been told that he was to receive visitors that morning, and did not know what was happening when prison hospital officials woke him, drove him to the court building and ushered his family in.

Seated handcuffed with two guards behind him, Wo spoke via a microphone through a large glass window before his wife, daughter, half a dozen more officials behind them and a video camera that recorded their conversation. Although his family members were instructed not to discuss the case, Wo reiterated his innocence and described to them the circumstances under which he claims he was forced to confess, saying his questioners promised him they would not press charges if he admitted guilt.

A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Qin Gang, said Thursday that Wo's trial had been fair and followed procedures. "Just because Wo Weihan has foreign relatives does not mean his case should be handled differently," Qin said at a news conference.

Given the murky details surrounding the case, Chen said she thinks the news that the Supreme Court's review had upheld her father's death sentence is "unconfirmable."

A lower court official told Wo's wife by phone on Monday that Wo's appeal to the country's highest court to spare his life had failed, but the family has since received no other confirmation. "We have received nothing in black and white on paper," she said. "The hardest thing about this is that we don't have any information."

Another of Wo's daughters arrived in Beijing from Austria this morning, too late to apply to join her sister and stepmother for today's visit. She will now be allowed to apply to the courts for the family's second visit; no date was set.