China jails U.S.-based dissident
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A Beijing court has sentenced a U.S.-based Chinese dissident to five years in prison after convicting him of espionage and illegal border crossing, his lawyer said.
Yang Jianli has already been imprisoned in Beijing for more than two years.
He will not receive credit for time served, according to his U.S.-based attorney Jared Genser.
Yang, a Chinese scholar living in the Boston area with permanent U.S. residency, was arrested in April 2002 on charges of using a friend's passport to enter China and traveling with a fake identity card for a week to observe labor unrest in northeastern China.
Genser said the spying charge was related to a small foundation that Yang ran from his home from 1992 to 1993.
The Chinese government charged that he received $400 in funding from a person in Taiwan who had ties a political party there.
The court has five days to deliver the verdict personally to Yang or a family member, and Yang will have another 10 days to appeal.
He was indicted last July in Beijing after spending more than a year in jail, and a secretive three-hour trial was held a month later.
No verdict was released after the brief trial and no observers were allowed in the courtroom because the case reportedly involved state secrets, Yang's attorney, Mo Shaoping, said at the time.
U.S. embassy officials had sought to attend the trial without success, Mo said.
According to Genser, a verdict in the case was due by December of last year -- the deadline under Chinese law. In March, Yang staged a three-day protest from prison because of the delay.
Yang operates the Boston-based Foundation for China in the 21st Century and has been blacklisted by Chinese authorities since 1989 for his participation in pro-democracy demonstrations.
The U.S. Senate last summer condemned Yang's lengthy detention and called for his immediate and unconditional release.
CNN's Tara Duffy contributed to this story.
