A Chinese dissident convicted of subversion based on evidence provided by US internet company Yahoo was released from prison on Friday after serving a 10-year term, his wife said.
Wang Xiaoning, 62, became a cause celebre after a Beijing court named Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) as the source of evidence that led to his 2003 conviction, in a public relations disaster for the company.
Wang was released from prison in the early hours of Friday “in a good mental and physical state”, his wife Yu Ling told reporters.
Yu said she had “stayed up half the night” in a police station waiting for her husband, after police visited her house to inform her of his release.
“I’m really happy my husband is home,” she said, speaking by telephone from the couple’s home in Beijing, where she said her husband was resting after his release.
She added that Wang should never have served a prison sentence for distributing essays that advocated democratic reform and criticised China’s one-party Communist rule using his Yahoo e-mail account.