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BEIJING - An Australian executive faces trial in China next week in a case that has badly strained relations, the government in Canberra and a Chinese lawyer involved in the case said Wednesday.
Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, an Australian passport holder, and three Chinese employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant will go on trial in Shanghai on Monday, they said.
A spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they will face charges of "receiving bribes and infringing commercial secrets" -- essentially an industrial espionage charge.
Zhai Jian, a lawyer for one of the Chinese defendants, confirmed to AFP that all four would go on trial from Monday at the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. Calls to the court went unanswered.
Australia said it was pleased the case was moving to trial, eight months after the four were arrested in Shanghai in July in a case that sent a chill through the foreign business community in China.
The arrests came during fractious iron ore contract talks which later collapsed and just weeks after Rio Tinto snubbed a near 20-billion-US-dollar cash injection from a state-run Chinese company.
Australia said consular officials would attend sessions of the trial relating to the receiving of bribes and that Canberra had asked that China reconsider a ban on attending closed proceedings on the trade secrets charge.
"At the request of one of the parties and in accordance with Chinese law and procedure, the court has decided that the sessions dealing with the infringement of commercial secrets should be closed," the spokeswoman said.
"Australian officials have asked for this to be reconsidered."
Rio Tinto, the world's third-largest miner, has said previously it was not aware of any wrongdoing by its employees.
It released a statement Wednesday saying it hoped the upcoming trial would be "a transparent and expeditious process".
Separately, the company's chief executive Tom Albanese is expected in China this weekend to attend an economic forum in Beijing, company spokesman Gervase Greene told AFP last week.
Beijing has insisted the case will be handled by the book and that it would "fully guarantee" the rights of the employees.
When the four were charged in February, China's official Xinhua news agency said they were accused of using their "positions to obtain benefits for others and on many occasions solicited or accepted bribes".
They had also "on many occasions obtained the trade secrets of Chinese steel companies, leading to serious consequences for the relevant steel companies", Xinhua said.
Lawyers involved in the case have declined to discuss the possible sentences the accused may face, citing the sensitivity of the case.
According to the website of China's Supreme People's Court, charges of bribery and abuse of one's position bring a sentence of at least five years in prison for large cases, or up to five years for lesser violations.
The trade secrets charges call for sentences of at least three years in jail for cases resulting in "especially" large losses, or lesser terms for smaller cases, it said.
- AFP/ir
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