Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate paroled on medical grounds

China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo has been granted medical parole after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver, his lawyer has confirmed.

Mr Liu was handed an 11-year sentence in 2009 on subversion charges brought after he co-authored a call for legal and political reform of the one-party communist political system known as Charter 08.

The literature professor was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". China attacked Mr Liu's recognition as an attack on China's political and legal system, and a "flagrant interference in China's sovereignty". His wife Liu Xia has been under house arrest since after he won the award.

One of Mr Liu’s lawyers Mo Shaoping told Hong Kong’s Apple Daily on Monday: “I heard that his liver cancer is in the terminal stages, and that he is on medical parole and being treated in the hospital – the news came from his brother Liu Xiaoxuan, he has verified it.”

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Another of Mr Liu’s legal representatives, Shang Baojun, subsequently confirmed that Mr Liu had been granted medical parole and was being treated at the Shenyang China Medical University Hospital. He was diagnosed on May 23rd.

Mr Liu had previously spent two years in prison for his role in supporting the students who demonstrated for democracy on Tiananmen Square in 1989. He also helped prevent more bloodshed by successfully negotiating with the army the evacuation of the last remaining students on Tiananmen Square in the early morning of 4th June after the bloody crackdown.

Charter 08 was signed by more than 10,000 people, including leading intellectuals, writers and dissidents.