Wu, an editor for China’s state news agency, Xinhua, was arrested for allegedly leaking an advance copy of then President Jiang Zemin’s 14th Communist Party Congress address to a journalist from the now defunct Hong Kong newspaper Kuai Bao (Express). His wife, Ma, editor of Zhongguo Jiankang Jiaoyu Bao (China Health Education News), was arrested on the same day and accused of acting as Wu’s accomplice. The Beijing Municipal Intermediate People’s Court held a closed trial and sentenced Wu to life imprisonment on August 30, 1993, for “illegally supplying state secrets to foreigners.” Ma was sentenced to six years in prison.
According to the terms of her original sentence, Ma should have been released in November 1998, but CPJ has been unable to obtain information on her legal status.
Wu’s life sentence was later reduced, and he is scheduled to be released from Beijing’s No. 2 Prison on July 10, 2005, according to information received from the Chinese Ministry of Justice by the Dui Hua Foundation, a political-prisoner advocacy group.