Jude Shao, a 42-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was notified Jan. 31 that China's Supreme People's Court had rejected his petition for a retrial. Prominent U.S. politicians, human rights groups and his former Stanford University classmates have campaigned for him to overturn his 16-year prison sentence. In June, his family filed a request for medical parole, but the request was denied.. Shao, a native of Shanghai, was arrested and imprisoned in 1998 on charges that he had not paid proper taxes for a medical-equipment importing business he started after graduating from Stanford Business School. He was sentenced for tax fraud. In February 2002, he filed a petition for a retrial with China's highest court in Beijing.
A campaign by Shao's Stanford classmates -- which attracted the support of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) -- has helped push him to the top of the U.S. government's prisoner priority list. The Bush administration is being asked to step up pressure on China to release him.(Source: Evelyn Iritani, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 2005