INTERNATIONAL outrage is rising over the plight of a Chinese-born Australian businessman who was seized from a Macau luxury hotel, taken into China and illegally imprisoned.
James Peng Jiandong has spent seven months in a Shenzhen jail without charge while his wife, Lina, begs Australian diplomats to press for his freedom.
Mrs Peng revealed the family's trauma in the Sunday Morning Post this month and said she had decided to speak out publicly about the apparent stalemate in Australian-Chinese negotiations over her husband.
The case threatens to blow up into an international row as Australian and Hong Kong television teams, news magazines and newspapers besiege Mrs Peng.
''Before, I wanted to give [the Chinese authorities] face, but now I'm worried about my husband,'' she said.
Mrs Peng said she had begun to receive intimidating telephone calls. The mystery caller hangs up each time she picks up her receiver.
