Stern Hu set to face secretive Beijing trial
Updated
It's been eight months coming but the detained executives from Rio Tinto's Shanghai-based iron ore negotiating team will finally face court next Monday. Stern Hu and his three Chinese colleagues are charged with giving and receiving bribes as well as inducing Chinese steel company executives into leaking them sensitive commercial information. But before the trial has even started, the Australian government is already not happy with the way it's being handled.
Presenter: China correspondent Stephen McDonell
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MCDONELL: The Chinese Government has a high-security, VIP-guest, special reception compound in the West of Beijing, complete with gardens, banquet halls and the like. It's called Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
There, next Monday, a Chinese Government think tank known as the "China Development Research Foundation" will hold a session under the title - "Strengthening Global Cooperation for a Mutually Beneficial Future".
Speaker No 3 at this session, not open to the general public, is one Tom Albanese, President and CEO of Rio Tinto.
At the same time the head of Rio Tinto is speaking in Beijing about "strengthening global cooperation for a mutually beneficial future" four of his executives from the iron ore negotiating team will be facing court in Shanghai.
Australian diplomats were informed last night that the trial of Stern Hu, Liu Caikui, Ge Mingqiang and Wang Yong will be on next Monday.
The ABC has been told that the trial will probably start early - at around 8.30 in the morning.
The four Rio Tinto staff are charged with giving and receiving bribes - for at least some of that part of the trial, Australian consular officials will be allowed to observe.
But they are also charged with receiving sensitive commercial secrets in return for some form of inducements. These secrets relating to iron ore price negotiations came from Chinese steel companies and are said to have been received for the benefit of another party - that other party presumably means Rio Tinto.
According to the Australian Government statement issued last night, the portion of the trial relating to commercial secrets will be held behind closed doors at the request of one of the parties.
This must mean that at least part of the bribery matter - that relating to giving bribes - will also have to be secret because it relates to the central industrial espionage allegation.
The statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade does not say who it was that requested that the major part of this trial be closed but says that Australia has asked for the closed-trial decision to be reconsidered.
If the central and most important part of this trial is to be heard in secret then - unless Rio Tinto decides to, at some point, tell its side of the story in public - the truth of this matter may not be known to anyone but those involved for a long time.
And, up until now, virtually nothing is known about what these four men are accused of in order to give their company Rio Tinto multi-billion dollar advantages in iron ore price negotiations.
Whatever they are said to have done, according to Chinese court documents, their actions led to "serious consequences for the relevant steel companies".
The central evidence is made up of documents that if you stacked in three piles would each be about 30 or 40 centimetres high but every word remains secret and it looks like most of it will stay that way even after next Monday.
