US student freed after week held in China over taxi dispute
BILLINGS, Mont. — An American university student is free following a weeklong detention in China for allegedly injuring a taxi driver who was roughing up his mother during a fare dispute, in a case that drew objections over the student’s treatment from U.S. lawmakers.
Guthrie McLean, a student at the University of Montana, was released from a detention centre in Zhengzhou early Monday, according to his mother, Jennifer McLean, a teacher who lives in the central Chinese city.
“We are very, very very, very happy,” Jennifer McLean wrote in an email to The Associated Press. She said the release — at 2 a.m. local time when her son was delivered to her doorstep — came as a surprise after she’d twice been told to anticipate a release only to be disappointed.
“They have not finished the process completely, but we are hopeful it will go smoothly from here on,” she said.