U.S. RELUCTANT TO RETURN CHINESE SUSPECTS

LOS ANGELES -- Liu Zhanhao has at least three names and as many passports.
Canadian court records show the Chinese citizen first entered Canada in
1981 using one name. Using another name, he pleaded for asylum in May 1990,
saying he was penniless. Eleven months later, he applied for asylum again,
this time claiming he was a political dissident fleeing the June 1989
crackdown around Tiananmen Square.

Liu has also acknowledged slipping into the United States unnoticed on
numerous occasions, starting in 1991. He was convicted in the mid-1990s of
credit card fraud in Toronto and California, and of immigration fraud in
California.

Despite all this and an arrest warrant from China seeking his extradition
for heroin trafficking, Liu, 37, has succeeded in remaining in the United
States.

U.S. law enforcement officials say Liu's case highlights the ease with
which criminal suspects from other countries can find shelter in the United
States with little risk of being sent home. Chinese do particularly well
because of Beijing's bad human rights record and often-criticized criminal
justice system.

Experts on crime in China say Liu's case underscores the need for
Washington and Beijing to bolster cooperation to fight crime. U.S.
officials say law enforcement cooperation, including closer exchanges of
intelligence on drug trafficking and terrorism, has become an important
component of Washington's relations with Beijing, especially since the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

"We want to create a net to stop international crime," said Zhao Yongchen,
law professor at the China People's Public Security University and an
official of the Ministry of Public Security. Other Chinese officials,
however, caution that Beijing's cooperation will go only so far. China,
worried that some testimony might implicate high-ranking Communist Party
officials, isn't eager for some alleged crooks to come home.

Chinese police have been after Liu ever since 800 cartons of pineapples
arrived in Australia on April 28, 1997, with 172 pounds of heroin stashed
among the fruit.

The fruit was shipped from Guangdong province in southern China. Liu, in a
recent interview here, said he was in Guangdong when the goods were shipped
and helped broker the pineapple deal. That's why his name was on the
shipping manifest, he said.

"I knew about the pineapples," he said, "but I didn't know about the drugs."

China has issued an international arrest warrant for Liu. When Chinese
police determined that he'd moved to California, they requested assistance
from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA contacted the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, which discovered that he'd lied on his
application to become a permanent U.S. resident, failing to note his
conviction in Toronto for credit card fraud.

The INS started deportation proceedings, but in a series of rulings that
ended this year, Liu beat back those efforts after his lawyers argued that
he faced torture in China if he was sent back. "Everybody knows that if he
goes to China he will be killed," said Bob Platt, one of Liu's lawyers.
"What part of this am I missing?"

In March, China and the United States signed an agreement outlining
procedures for cooperation between their countries' law enforcement
agencies. The pact also provides a mechanism for one country to send a
prisoner to the other to provide testimony or other evidence.

But an extradition treaty is still a long way off. U.S. officials say some
people in Washington are reluctant to send suspects back to China.

As for heroin suspect Liu, he said he's happy with his new life in a Los
Angeles suburb. He noted that he has a job making aircraft engines,
although he won't reveal the company's name. John Fernandes, assistant
special agent in charge of the DEA's field office in Los Angeles, claims
Liu has gang affiliations.

"I've made a lot of mistakes, but now I want to have a new life. I don't
want to hurt anyone anymore," Liu said. "I don't want to talk about what's
right or wrong; I just want to disappear."