Beijing (AFP)

Swedish publisher Gui Minhai, accused of disseminating "classified information", has been sentenced in China to 10 years' imprisonment, a verdict that risks stirring up diplomatic tension between Beijing and Stockholm.

Both a bookseller and a publisher, Gui Minhai, 55, published books in Hong Kong with salacious content on Chinese leaders. He had already been detained in China between 2015 and 2017, before "disappearing" again in the country in February 2018.

A court in Ningbo (eastern China), which pronounced the sentence on Monday, found him guilty of having "illegally distributed classified information abroad", without specifying the nature of the latter.

The court assured in a statement that the publisher had asked in 2018 to regain his Chinese nationality. However, China does not recognize dual nationality; it was not immediately known whether he had given up his Swedish passport.

Gui "admitted his guilt, accepted the verdict and will not appeal," the statement said.

Gui Minhai worked in Hong Kong for the Mighty Current publishing house. Taking advantage of public freedoms in semi-autonomous Chinese territory, this house published sensationalist books on the privacy of Chinese leaders, banned in mainland China.

But in 2015, like four of his colleagues, Mr. Gui had vanished: he had disappeared while on vacation in Thailand ... before reappearing in a Chinese detention center and "confessing" on state television his involvement in a road accident in 2003.

- Televised "confessions" -

Chinese authorities claimed to have released him in October 2017, but according to his daughter, Angela Gui, he had been placed under house arrest in Ningbo (east).

Mr. Gui was arrested again in January 2018 on a train, when he was traveling to Beijing, accompanied by Swedish diplomats, for a medical appointment.

After this second "disappearance", Gui Minhai appeared again on Chinese television, accusing his adopted country - Sweden - of having manipulated him as "a pawn" and admitting "to have broken the law at his instigation".

A version that his relatives doubt, who relentlessly denounced political prosecutions.

Human rights organizations routinely accuse China of forcing detainees to make public "confessions" in carefully staged videos.

And this in a country where justice remains closely subject to the decisions of the communist authorities.

- "Reprisals" against Stockholm -

The new conviction could reignite tensions between China and Sweden, whose relations were severely disrupted by the detention of Gui Minhai.

Stockholm had strongly denounced in February 2018 the "brutal" arrest of Mr. Gui in the train where Swedish diplomats were accompanying him, deeming it "contrary to basic international rules on consular support".

And China had expressed its anger when, last November, the Swedish Minister of Culture gave Mr. Gui Minhai, in his absence, a prize from the defense association of writers PEN.

The Chinese ambassador threatened Stockholm with "retaliatory measures", while Beijing canceled the visit to Sweden of two large delegations of Chinese employers.

The case also makes waves in Swedish diplomacy: the former Swedish ambassador to Beijing, Anna Lindstedt, is sent to court for trying to negotiate in early 2019 with mysterious intermediaries, allegedly close to Chinese power, Gui Minhai's release without notifying his ministry.

The verdict comes as Yang Hengjun, a pro-democracy activist of Chinese origin and Australian nationality, has been held incommunicado in China since January 2019.

Known for publishing spy novels and critics of the Chinese government online, the 50-year-old is accused of spying. Canberra strongly denounced the "unacceptable" treatment of its national.

© 2020 AFP