Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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                      China Frees Imprisoned US Geologist

   by VOA News

   China has freed an American geologist who spent more than eight years
   in prison on a conviction of procuring state secrets, a human rights
   group said.

   The San Francisco-based [1]Dui Hua Foundation said on Saturday that Xue
   Feng, 50, was deported to the United States immediately after his
   release on Friday. The human rights group group said Xue was reunited
   Friday evening with his family in Houston, a city in the southwestern
   U.S. state of Texas.

   Xue, 50 and a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, was detained in November of
   2007 after buying a database on China's oil industry while working for
   U.S. energy and engineering consulting firm IHS Inc. He was sentenced
   in 2010 on charges of illegally gathering information on oil and gas
   holdings of the China National Petroleum Corp., according to The
   Associated Press.

   The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court said Xue, who holds a
   doctorate from the University of Chicago, "endangered our country's
   national security," the AP reported.

   American diplomats had objected to his long prison sentence as unduly
   harsh.
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   [2]http://www.voanews.com/content/china-frees-imprisoned-us-geologist/2
   706715.html

References

   1. http://duihua.org/wp/
   2. http://www.voanews.com/content/china-frees-imprisoned-us-geologist/2706715.html