Australian writer accused of spying in China says he was tortured

A Chinese Australian writer tried in Beijing for alleged espionage has told supporters he pleaded for a judge to reject evidence of what he had said while being tortured by interrogators.

Yang Hengjun faced a closed trial on Thursday and the court deferred its verdict to a later date.

Australian ambassador to China on Friday labelled his incarceration since arriving in China in January 2019 as arbitrary detention.

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The Associated Press on Monday saw the crime novelist and blogger's account of the legal proceedings circulated among his supporters over the weekend.

Mr Yang said he had a meeting with his trial judge three days before his one-day trial.

The judge refused his request to submit evidence and call witnesses during the trial but agreed to include almost 100 pages of defence documents in his case file.

"I made a plea to the judge to exclude my interrogation records from the court proceedings," Yang said.

"It's illegal. Torture. They had hidden camera records," Mr Yang added.

He did not say how the judge responded to his request.

Chinese Criminal Procedure Law prohibits confessions forced by torture or threats.

The prosecution case, "according to legal facts, is groundless," Mr Yang said.

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The writer said he was "tired and confused" during the hearing and "didn't have the spirit to speak enough."

He estimated he spoke for less than five minutes in his own defence but said the hearing "gave me a sense that things are OK."

"The interrogations I had been subjected to, where I was told I had to confess, and the treatment I received for the first one-and-a-half years was (sic) much worse," he said.

Chinese authorities have not released any details of the charges against Mr Yang, who reportedly formerly worked for China's Ministry of State Security as an intelligence agent.

Mr Yang told his supporters at the weekend: "I served China when I was young, even secretly."

He has denied the accusation against him, and while a conviction is virtually certain, it isn't clear when the verdict will be handed down.

The espionage charge carries penalties ranging from three years in prison to the death penalty.

The trial comes at a time of deteriorating relations between the countries, brought on by Chinese retaliation against Australian legislation against foreign involvement in its domestic politics, the exclusion of telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G phone network, and calls for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus that was first detected in China in late 2019.