CHINA:CHEN RAN cannot sleep for wondering why exactly her father Wo Weihan has been sentenced to death for espionage by a Beijing court.
Her father lost his appeal against the execution and now his life is in the hands of the Supreme People's Court, where his sentence is undergoing a mandatory review, part of new rules to reduce the number of executions in China each year.
China executes more prisoners than anywhere else in the world and, in the year Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, Wo's conviction has become a test case for the country's intention to wield the ultimate sanction less often.
"I'm in a very desperate state of mind. I want to speak for my father," she says.
"I'm very sad . . . I believe my father is innocent," says Chen, who grew up in China, then southern Germany, before her family settled in Salzburg.
She holds Austrian citizenship.
Wo (59) is a scientist who ran his own biomedical company, the Beyiketai Medical Technology Ltd, until his arrest.
He was convicted of spying for a Taiwanese spy organisation in 2005. The death sentence is highly unusual for a spying case not involving a member of the People's Liberation Army.
The case has turned the lives of Chen and her American husband Michael on their heads.
They have moved to China to try and save her father's life, both taking a job with international marketing companies.
"I don't have any memories that could connect his life to these allegations and crimes. But it's not up to me to determine his innocence, it's up to the court and the justice system to give him a fair trial.
"We're hoping for the last chance now. It can happen any time after the Supreme Court decision. I was told that often families are not informed before the execution. They could just come to us after and say, 'pick up the body'," said Chen.
The case could feature in forthcoming EU-China human rights talks.
Wo may well have been a victim of heightened tensions between mainland China and Taiwan in 2005. Taiwan was being aggressively pro-independence and the mainland was unhappy with the rule of the Beijing-baiting president Chen Shui-bian, recently voted out of power.
The Straits Times journalist Ching Cheong was also arrested for spying for Taiwan in that year. He received a five-year sentence of which he served 2½ years.
The lack of transparency over the verdict means that his family can only speculate on the reason for his harsh sentencing.
The government has been making efforts to reduce the number of executions.
Since the start of last year, final authority in death sentences has been returned to the Supreme People's Court, reducing the authority of local courts, which tend to order more executions.
"I believe the review instituted on January 1st, 2007, has been to date the most significant human rights reform instituted by the Hu Jintao/Wen Jiabao government," said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that works to free Chinese political prisoners.
"This case is the human face of the reform," he said.
Non-violent crimes such as corruption and tax fraud are among 68 crimes that can attract the death penalty in China.
Execution numbers are a state secret but according to Dui Hua's research the number dropped last year by one-quarter to one-third. In 2007, the figure was between 5,000 and 6,000 executions, compared with 8,000 the previous year.
Putting a human face on China's thousands of executions is difficult as people are afraid to say anything. Ms Chen's Austrian citizenship offers her protection and opponents of the death penalty are hoping this will be a test case.
"From what we know the verdict seems unsafe. From what I have read it doesn't fall into the category of 'most serious and vile crimes' that qualifies for the death penalty," said Kamm.
"There are aspects that are troubling that raise serious doubts and concerns in my mind. We have the verdict. But do we know what's going on? I doubt it," said Kamm, adding that he is quite sure that if Mr Wo's activities had led to loss of life, it would have been included in the verdict.
According to the verdict, Wo confessed to passing military secrets to Taiwan, and implicated another man who has also been sentenced to death - confessions are a regular feature of judicial verdicts, but given that Wo confessed during the 10 months of detention without legal counsel then withdrew his confession during the trials, there are concerns that the confessions could have been coerced.
Also, he is accused of passing information from military magazines, but this information apparently came from a publicly accessible library in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
There are also other issues, such as the fact he was only allowed to see a lawyer after the investigation period was closed.
In a closed session at the end of March, Beijing Higher Court confirmed Wo's death penalty on appeal. Wo is in a prison hospital after suffering a stroke in detention in February 2005.
"I believe he was interrogated very intensely in the detention centre," said Chen.
"Then in the latter days, no one came to see him when he was alone in his cell. I think he freaked out and that's when he had a stroke," she said.
He was allowed out for treatment after the stroke and to stay home for seven weeks, another troubling aspect of the case - do you let dangerous criminals go home so easily?
"I'm mildly optimistic and extremely hopeful that in this case the Supreme Court will show the review system works and produce more just results," said Kamm.
"I'd be very disappointed if the individuals are executed," said Kamm.
The last time Chen saw her father as a free man was on May 8th, 2004, the day she got married in Innsbruck in the Alps. She did not see him again until November 2006, by which time he had been sentenced to death.
Since then her life has been filled with maddening, heartbreaking uncertainty.
"I had brief eye contact with him during the announcement of the verdict and when I close my eyes I see he had resignation in his face and he didn't want to be seen like this by his family.
"It's very sad. I still have my hopes up. I don't want to give up on my father," she said.
"I don't know whether I should prepare for disaster in the next couple of days or weeks or months.
"I just don't know."