“Probably, somebody local—not the center, in Beijing—wanted Swidan put away, and they got the police to make the case, and then the Iron Triangle—the police, the prosecutors, the courts—kicked in,” Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington University who specializes in Chinese law, told me.

“Once it gets to the prosecutor, the court knows that if they don’t convict, then the prosecutor personally and the prosecutor’s office as well get a black mark,” Clarke said. “Once it gets into the court, there is no realistic chance that the person is going to be acquitted.”

U.S. authorities say they have no idea what Swidan did to spark his arrest. Probably nothing illegal. The Human Rights Council report noted that he “might have been a witness,” but it doesn’t state what, if anything, he witnessed, and it goes on to note that Swidan refused to sign a confession. At Swidan’s trial, in November 2013, the prosecution relied entirely on hearsay, producing “neither forensic nor telecommunications evidence” of any crime, according to the report. The court delayed passing judgment on Swidan numerous times, leaving him in legal limbo.

Whatever the reason, for the past decade, Swidan, now 48, has been held at the Jiangmen Municipal Detention Center, south of Guangzhou. In 2019, without explanation, he was sentenced to death. (The sentence has been suspended.)