Two Republican senators from Texas are publicly calling on China to release a “wrongfully detained” American who faces the death penalty after he was arrested for drug trafficking while on a business trip to the country more than a decade ago.
Mark Swidan was 38 when he traveled to China on business looking for flats for construction work in November 2012. He was arrested after his driver and translator were allegedly found with drugs. Texas Tribune reported.
A United Nations report determined that Swidan was not in possession of drugs on his person or in his hotel room, and records show that he was not in China at the time of the alleged crime.
The UN report said the 11 other people arrested with Swidan as part of the alleged trafficking ring could not identify him and that the conviction was based on his visit to a factory once used to make methamphetamine.
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Mark Swidan was arrested in China in 2012 on drug charges that the UN says are not legitimate. (Mark Swidan family)
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn along with Republican Rep. Michael Cloud are renewing calls for Swidan’s release and introduced a resolution last week calling on the Biden administration to secure his release.
“We have been engaged in Mark’s case for some time, with the Chinese government [and] with the Department of State”, Cruz he told Fox 26 Houston. “Because it wasn’t being done, we made the decision that the next step to increase the pressure was to go public. I’m going to keep pushing because Mark needs to come home, and he needs to come home now.”
Swidan’s mother, Katherine, who has not been able to see him since 2018, says her son’s health is deteriorating and he has lost more than 100 pounds.
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Mark Swidan has been jailed in China for more than 10 years and faces a death sentence. (Mark Swidan family)
“We just want to get Mark home, so we can take care of him,” Katherine Swidan told Fox 26 Houston. “They tried to force him to confess. Whatever they do to him, he will never confess to anything he didn’t do. His passport shows that he was not in China at the time of any crime.”
Swidan also says the Chinese authorities have been torturing his son, who faces a death sentence he has been fighting for three years.
“His appeal court has been postponed 30 times,” he added. “No one can give a direct answer as to why it is still there.”
“I call on the Biden administration to use every tool at our disposal to secure Mark’s release,” Cruz said. “And I call on the government of China to finally release Mark.”
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President Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Monday, November 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to travel to China over the weekend, when the family hoped they could make progress to secure Swidan’s release. However, the trip was postponed in response to the launch of a Chinese spy balloon into the United States.
“The Chinese government will not allow US Consulate personnel to speak to him,” Cruz said. “They won’t let his mother talk to him. His conditions are terrible.”
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A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the department raises the issue of wrongfully detained citizens with other countries “at every opportunity” and that Secretary Blinken is “personally focused” on bringing detained U.S. citizens home. unfairly in China.
“For the past decade, Mark Swidan’s family has fought tirelessly for his return after the Chinese government wrongfully detained him and sentenced him to death,” Senator Cornyn said in a press release. “The human rights abuses Mark has suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party are horrifying, and I will continue to press the Biden administration to expedite his case and secure his release.”
The calls for Swidan’s release come several months after the Biden administration negotiated a prisoner swap with Russia to free WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was jailed on drug charges.
