HONG KONG — Nelson Wells Jr. spent nearly a decade in prison in China.
In May 2014, the American traveled to the country from Japan, where he lived with his wife and three children, to seek treatment for a head injury he suffered in a car accident. road. He was arrested and accused of trying to smuggle drugs out of the country while leaving China from the city of Chongqing.
Wells, now 50, was initially sentenced to life in prison after being convicted without a chance to tell his side of the story and with little evidence of his guilt, his attorney said. family on its website. In 2019, his sentence was reduced to a fixed sentence of 22 years, not including time he had already served.
During brief phone conversations, his family gets a glimpse of his deteriorating health: high blood pressure, dramatic weight loss, mental health problems and seizures that they believe are linked to his accident.
“He’s hanging by a thread,” Wells’ mother, Cynthia Wells, 69, told NBC News in a Zoom interview last week from the family’s home in Louisiana.
As Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China this week for the second time in less than a year as part of efforts to stabilize the delicate relationship between the world’s two largest economies, American families like the Wellses had a more immediate concern: when, or if, their loved ones detained in China will return home.
The situation for Americans detained in China is complicated by the fact that the two countries do not have a bilateral agreement on prisoner transfers.
The Wells family found new hope when they learned of a law passed by China in 2018 that established a process for transferring foreign prisoners to facilities in their home countries for medical, humanitarian or other reasons. compassion, on a case-by-case basis, without the need for a bilateral agreement.
Wells’ father, Nelson Wells Sr., called the law “promising”: Even though the younger Wells would still be in a U.S. prison, he would be closer to his family, have access to health and education services and could perhaps get early insertion. release. All the family had to do, Wells Sr. said, was get the U.S. government to start a discussion about its case with China.
“All it takes is for someone to break it down, apply it, and someone to say, ‘OK, listen, let’s try,’” he said.
Early last month, Nelson and Cynthia Wells traveled to Washington for a series of meetings with their representatives in Congress, the State Department, the Justice Department and others, to see if anything could be done. . They left discouraged.
“They said, ‘That’s not going to work,’” Wells Sr., 68, said.
A State Department spokesperson said the United States “has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad.” The State Department has not determined that Wells was wrongfully detained, but he receives regular visits from U.S. consular officials who monitor his treatment, health and safety, most recently in January, the spokesperson said. word.
Blinken said Friday that he raised the case of U.S. citizens wrongly detained or subject to exit bans during his trip to China this week.
“President Biden and I will not rest until they are back with their families, where they belong,” he told reporters in Beijing.
The Justice Department told NBC News it was aware of the Wells case but declined to comment on Chinese law.
The offices of Louisiana Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy and the office of Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents the Wells family’s district, did not respond to requests for comment.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that China is governed by the rule of law, its judicial authorities handle all cases according to law and “there is absolutely no such thing “unjustified detention”. Justice did not respond to a request for comment.
“You just can’t tell me that these things that we have in front of us can’t work. I’m not a man who can’t, said Wells Sr. “I’m the type of person who fully believes that if you sit down and think about it, there are ways to make it happen.”
A starting point for cooperation
Peter Humphrey, a former British journalist and investigator who spent two years in a Chinese prison after being convicted of what he says were trumped-up charges of illegal information gathering, said that based on his research , he estimates that about 300 Americans are detained or imprisoned. in China, many of them for non-political crimes carrying much harsher penalties than in the United States.
Although China defends its justice system as fair and impartial, Humphrey and other critics say due process rights are often violated in China’s courts, which are controlled by the ruling Communist Party.
During a visit to Beijing last June, Blinken told CBS News that the United States and China were “actively talking” about three Americans in particular who Washington says have been wrongly detained for years: David Lin, Kai Li and Mark Swidan.
Harrison Li, whose father, Kai Li, has been imprisoned in China since 2016 on espionage charges he denies, said he was not aware of any “significant progress” since Blinken’s last trip in China and that “the biggest challenge we face as families trying to defend the interests of our loved ones is only the bureaucracy of our own country.
“It’s dangerous to hope,” he said Tuesday before Blinken’s trip, “but we obviously hope for the best.”
The State Department spokesperson declined to comment on ongoing efforts to bring back Li and other Americans considered wrongly detained in China, citing the sensitive nature of the conversations.
The Biden administration is also grappling with the detention of Americans in Russia, where high-profile cases include former Marine Paul Whelan and journalist Evan Gershkovich. WNBA star Brittney Griner was released in exchange for an arms dealer in December 2022, nearly a year after she was arrested in Russia on drug charges that she said were the result of a “honest mistake” in bringing cannabis oil into the country.
“We’ve been able to get people from them, but it looks like we can’t get anyone from China,” Wells Sr. said.
There is currently little legal cooperation between the United States and China, but the transfer of prisoners such as Wells “is an area that the United States should consider focusing on,” said James Zimmerman, a U.S.-based lawyer. in Beijing and present in China for more than a year. over 25 years and who has advised the Wells family.
“This could be a simple way to restart judicial cooperation between the two countries, because the risks are low,” he said. “It is indeed based on reciprocity, but if an agreement is reached, or if the treaty is concluded, you can put safeguards in place on how the mechanisms will work.”
Humphrey, who also worked with the Wells family, said Chinese law had been used successfully when transferring prisoners from France. But the U.S. government may be reluctant to do so, he said, “because it’s afraid of what China might demand in return behind the scenes.”
Zimmerman said the United States may also be concerned that Chinese nationals held in U.S. prisons could in turn be pressured by Chinese authorities to say they want to be returned to China as part of the transfer process, which requires the consent of the person being transferred.
“But ultimately the benefits will be for the citizens, the American citizens who are currently languishing in Chinese prisons, far, far away from their families,” he said.
Even as the United States and China grapple with a range of issues, the Wells and other families hope the names of their loved ones were a priority during Blinken’s trip.
“I want him to bring Nelson Wells Jr. home,” said Wells Sr. “That’s what I want.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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