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Detained newsman may escape trial

Deadline passes on charges as former provincial party elders come to editor's aid

A preliminary deadline has passed for corruption charges to be filed against former Southern Metropolis Daily editor-in-chief Cheng Yizhong as reports emerge that Guangdong party elders have intervened on his behalf, his lawyer and other sources say.

But Mr Cheng's legal troubles are not yet over.

'It's true that 45 days have passed - he was arrested on March 19,' said his lawyer, Xu Zhiyong . 'But they can wait a maximum of half a year [before filing charges].'

Sources said former Guangdong Communist Party chief Ren Zhongyi , a reformist, and former party official Wu Nansheng had written to current party secretary Zhang Dejiang asking him to make his views on the case known.

The China Youth Daily has described the case against Mr Cheng as a joke and urged the central government to step in. Mr Cheng was first arrested on January 8 but released after deputy party secretary Cai Dongshi intervened.

He was re-arrested on March 19 after the court handed a 12-year sentence to the tabloid's former general manager, Yu Huafeng, for embezzlement, and jailed Li Minying, a former director of the newspaper's parent group, for 11 years for taking bribes.

Mainland legal and economic experts has called for a retrial of the two managers, saying their convictions were 'a slap in the face' for Beijing's reform efforts. The arrest and trial of the newspaper executives would almost certainly have been condoned by senior Guangdong party officials.

Sources said the newspaper's problems started a year ago when it was preparing to run an expose on police brutality in the death of migrant worker Sun Zhigang.

The sources said Guangzhou police chief Zhu Suisheng asked Mr Cheng to pull the story because it would damage his chances of promotion, but the newspaper printed it anyway.

Police and prosecutors took a year to collect evidence before charging the managers with corruption and arresting Mr Cheng.

In Mr Cheng's case, investigators went as far as looking for irregularities in his hospital and health insurance claims, as well as his sale of an apartment, a Southern Metropolis Daily journalist said.

The journalist said the amount of money the managers were convicted of taking from the newspaper - 580,000 yuan in Yu's case and 970,000 yuan in Li's case - was so small that it was laughable. 'They are looking for an excuse to get these people,' he said.

The managers claimed the money was paid as a bonus. Newspapers in Guangzhou commonly distribute some of their advertising revenue to staff as an incentive.

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