The Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions has informed High Court in Belgrade that Chinese national Cui Guanghai and Briton John Miller are on the run after removing their electronic bracelets and leaving their addresses during the crackdown house arrest, which was assigned to them in May of this year, is stated in the official response of the High Court submitted BIRN-u.
Cui Guanghai, also known as the Chinese "Agent Jack", and his British associate Miller were arrested on April 24 in the Belgrade Hyatt Hotel on the basis of an international warrant issued at the request of the USA and were awaiting a decision on extradition.
The US accuses them of organizing the persecution in California of the Chinese artist Hui Bo, who lives in the US and creates provocative sculptures that mock Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife. Later, the charges were extended to the attempt of illegal trade in American military equipment and its smuggling to China, for which they face up to 20 years in prison.
According to the High Court in Belgrade, the Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions informed that court that two foreign nationals who were awaiting extradition to the USA escaped from house arrest.
The court's answer does not state on what date the alarm was sounded by the escape, but it is stated that after that, on August 15 of this year, the High Court in Belgrade issued a decision by which the ban on leaving the apartment was revoked and custody was ordered for Cujo and Miller, and a warrant was ordered to be issued.
Although we are talking about serious charges and foreign nationals without residence in Serbia, less than a month after their arrest, on May 21, the court abolished their prison detention and ordered them to be kept at home, with electronic monitoring. At the time, some lawyers assessed that this was an unusual measure in such cases and warned of the risk of escape. However, Cuje and Miller's lawyer, Goran Petronijević, claimed that "they are serious people and are not criminals."
Immediately after the arrest, BIRN asked the US Department of Justice if there were any indications that Serbia might try to delay or even completely avoid the extradition process - a topic that has already been widely discussed in certain diplomatic circles. Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the US Department of Justice, responded curtly: "We have no comment."
The London Mail on Sunday announced in June this year that, according to their information, Cui Guanghai is allegedly a high-ranking member of the Chinese intelligence service, close to Chinese President Xi Jinping. "There are now fears that Chinese spies may try to help him escape, given suspicions that Cui is a senior intelligence official," the newspaper said at the time.
Although escaping from house arrest under electronic surveillance is not impossible, the question remains as to how feasible it was in the case of two foreign citizens who, according to the High Court's data, resided at two different addresses, and managed to disappear from them without a trace, almost simultaneously - whether they could have done it without any help from the outside.
The electronic monitoring devices are designed to sound an alarm immediately upon any attempt to remove the bracelet or nanopin. How much time passed from the moment the alarm sounded to the arrival of the commissioner and how the suspects managed to use that interval to get away without a trace, are they still in Serbia at all or have they already managed to escape across the border and in what way - these are questions to which, for now, there is no official answer.
Source: BIRN
