China tries US engineer

Within a day of this meeting. Mr Fong was put on trial

A Chinese court has tried an American engineer on charges of obtaining state secrets and bribery, only hours after President George W Bush left the country.

The court did not announce any verdict in the trial of Fong Fuming, and a US embassy official said a further hearing would be scheduled to consider new evidence.

We say there was no indication they [the documents] were state secrets

Lawyer Jerome Cohen

The 66-year-old engineer is to remain in detention, dashing US hopes expressed by his US-based lawyer, Jerome Cohen, that he might be convicted and expelled, as in earlier cases.

The US Government has already complained that Mr Fong had been detained for 19 months before his case was heard.

Charges denied

Mr Fong was working as a consultant for American companies bidding for power projects when he was detained.

He is accused of illegally obtaining 43 confidential state documents between 1995 and 1996.

Mr Fong denies the charges.

Mr Cohen said there had been no indications the documents contained state secrets. "They were determined to be state secrets after the fact," he said.

China-US relations

China US relations have been strained by a series of detetions and trials involving US citzens and residents.

Last month, China released a Chinese-born American writer who was detained in April and charged with spying for Taiwan.

In July, an American academic based in Hong Kong and two Chinese-born US residents were convicted of spying but quickly released ahead of a visit to China by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.