STERN Hu and his three Rio Tinto colleagues have been listed for a secretive trial in a Shanghai court on Monday.
Australian officials have been told they will be barred from parts of the proceedings, prompting a retort from the Australian government.
But there are growing signs that China's President Hu Jintao wants the case resolved quickly, as China grapples with a host of larger foreign policy controversies.
The trial will coincide awkwardly with a Beijing visit by Rio Tinto chief executive Tom Albanese, who will be attending the China Development Forum and is expected to announce a joint-venture agreement with Chinalco to develop a huge iron ore mine in Guinea.
Hu and three members of his iron ore sales team, Wang Yong, Ge Minqiang and Liu Caikui, face charges of infringing commercial secrets and receiving bribes.
They have been held in a Shanghai detention centre without seeing their families since being taken from their homes on July 5.
Prosecutors have not released publicly any details of the crimes allegedly committed and lawyers for the accused have also largely been kept in the dark.
Zhai Jian, lawyer for Ge Minqiang, yesterday showed signs of strain after being asked how he had been notified of the trial.
''I am very unhappy with the way you are raising the question,'' he said.
''I got the notice and that's it. It's got nothing to do with you''.
But Mr Zhai confirmed the trial would start at 8.30am on Monday and he would find out where ''when the notice is in my hand''.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said it had been informed that the defendants would be tried on Monday at the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.
It said Shanghai consular officials would attend proceedings concerning bribery, but would be barred from commercial secrets proceedings.
''Australian officials have asked for this to be reconsidered,'' the department said last night.
Jerome Cohen, an authority on the Chinese criminal legal system at New York University, said China used to admit US consuls to secret trials, but that changed in recent years.
Beijing political sources have told The Age that the case has been caught up in factional rivalry between President Hu and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin.
But one close observer told The Age yesterday that President Hu has personally requested that this case be resolved expeditiously.
The source predicted ''good news will surface soon, very soon''. The observer predicted that President Hu would contrive to achieve a fast trial that would result in Stern Hu and his three colleagues being released from jail sooner than expected.
Some of China's leading lawyers have told The Age it was a mistake to sign up Shanghai lawyers for a politicised Shanghai case, such as Hu's, because local lawyers are more tightly controlled by the Shanghai Communist Party's ''politics and law committee''. Mr Jiang's most important ally, Zhou Yongkang, controls that committee. Mr Jiang's nephew, Wu Zhiming, controls the same position in the Shanghai Communist Party.
The Age
