Washington D.C. – VOA, October 31, 2024
Xiaolei Wu, a Chinese student who had been serving a nine-month prison sentence for threatening pro-democracy activists in Boston, received an early release on September 16 and returned to China, according to federal documents obtained by VOA’s Mandarin Service.
U.S. and Chinese officials have not commented publicly on Wu and whether he may have been part of a prisoner swap, but his return to China came about the time that American pastor David Lin was released and returned to the United States after serving 18 years in prison.
Documents from the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts and the U.S. Justice Department confirm Wu’s release and that President Joe Biden signed a clemency document on September 12, reducing Wu’s total sentence to time served, saying that it was in the “national interest” of the United States for him not to serve his full sentence.
The pardon document states that Wu began serving his sentence on June 7. The conditions for the commutation said Wu must leave the United States and never again set foot on U.S. soil and territories, and that he must not commit any crimes against the U.S. or violate U.S. laws again.
Wu, a former student of Berklee College of Music, was found guilty in January of stalking and threatening a pro-democracy activist in Boston in fall 2022. On April 24, Wu was sentenced to nine months in prison and three years of supervised release.
