http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-109461,00.html

WEDNESDAY APRIL 04 2001

China trial fear for US air crew

FROM OLIVER AUGUST IN BEIJING, AND DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

CHINA hinted last night that it might put the crew of an American spy plane on trial as tension over the grounding and seizure of the aircraft grew. China refused to release the 24 crew, although US diplomats were allowed to see them for the first time yesterday.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the fate of the 22 men and two women, who have been interrogated repeatedly, would be decided after an investigation, fuelling speculation that Beijing may be planning legal proceedings for causing the collision with a Chinese fighter jet on Sunday. China demanded an apology for the incident. Washington insisted that it would not apologise and that there was no justification for the detention of the crew.

President Bush indicated that patience was running out. He said: “Our approach has been to keep this accident from becoming an international incident. We have allowed the Chinese Government time to do the right thing. Now it is time for our servicemen and women to return home and for the Chinese Government to return our plane.”

Brigadier-General Neal Sealock, the US Embassy defence attaché, was taken to see the crew almost three days after the EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft made an emergency landing on the island of Hainan after the collision. “They are in good health,” he said.

Pentagon sources said the Chinese had started removing equipment from the plane, casting doubt on the likelihood of the aircraft ever being recovered. The Chinese Government refused to say whether an apology was a precondition for the release of the crew. “The US started this,” a spokesman said.

General Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, welcomed the attaché’s meeting but called for the rapid return of the crew and plane. “It shouldn’t have taken this long to happen,” he said of the diplomatic contact. “Now that it has happened I hope this starts us on a road to a complete resolution of this matter.”

Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the condition of the spy plane and would not say if the crew had been able to destroy sensitive systems and computer data in the 20 minutes between the collision and landing on Sunday.

China claims the US aircraft caused the collision over international waters and prosecution in China has not been ruled out. A conviction for murder or manslaughter is unlikely but should it come to that, the airmen would theoretically face ten to twenty years in a labour camp.