China Sentences Phan Phan-Gillis, U. S. Businesswoman, in Spying Case -
By CHRIS BUCKLEYAPRIL 25, 2017
BEIJING — An American businesswoman from Houston was sentenced to three
and half years in prison in China on spying charges on Tuesday, over two years after Chinese security officers spirited her away and 20 or more years after the alleged espionage was said to have taken place, her lawyer said.
In the indictment, the prosecutors also claimed that Ms. Phan-Gillis had tried to recruit Chinese people living
in the United States to work for a “foreign spy organization.” Mr. Gillis said that claim was also false.
After a secret trial in the morning in Nanning, the capital of the Guangxi region in southern China, a judge declared Ms. Phan-Gillis guilty, sentenced her and ordered her expelled from China —
but left unclear whether she had to serve out her prison sentence before being deported, Mr. Shang said by telephone.
But their broad accusation was that Ms. Phan-Gillis “engaged in activities harmful to Chinese national security” in both China
and the United States between 1995 and 1998, he said.