BEIJING (AP) – A Chinese court sentenced a New York Times researcher to three years in prison on a fraud conviction Friday, but acquitted him of the more serious charge of revealing state secrets.

The case against Zhao Yan, 44, came amid efforts by the communist government to tighten controls on the media as dozens of reporters have been jailed, often on charges of violating China’s vague secrecy and security laws.

Zhao was found innocent of the charge that could have resulted in a 10-year sentence because the court concluded that “prosecutors did not provide sufficient evidence,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The government has not released details of the state secrets charge, but the case is believed to stem from a Times report on then-Chinese leader Jiang Zemin’s plans to relinquish his post as head of the military.

The executive editor of the Times, Bill Keller, was heartened by the ruling. “If the verdict is what it appears to be, we welcome it as a vindication,” Keller said.

“We have always said that to the best of our knowledge, the only thing Zhao Yan committed is journalism.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists endorsed the acquittal.

“We are surprised that the state secret charges were dismissed, which has seldom happened in the past but it was clear the government never had a valid case from the very beginning,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz.

Xinhua on Friday released the first details of the fraud charge, which was based on an incident that prosecutors say occurred in 2001, before Zhao went to work for the Times’ Beijing bureau.

The court convicted him of taking $2,500 from a man on a false promise that he had official connections and would have the man’s 18-month sentence in a labor camp rescinded, Xinhua said. It said Zhao was fined $250 and ordered to repay the $2,500.

Zhao denies the fraud charges, said his chief lawyer, Mo Shaoping. Another defense lawyer, Guan Anping, said he didn’t know whether Zhao would appeal the conviction handed down by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court.

The two years that Zhao has spent in detention will count toward his sentence, Guan said. Mo said Zhao’s family has not been allowed to meet with him since he was detained.

Zhao’s case was dismissed in March in an apparent effort to minimize strains with Washington before Hu visited the United States. The charges were later refiled and Zhao stood trial in June.

Jerome Cohen, an American expert on Chinese law who advised the Times, said the case was a rare example of a Chinese court acquitting a defendant on such politically sensitive charges.

Cohen said the fraud charge appeared to have been added only to justify holding Zhao after the legal period for investigating the secrets charge had expired.

“Now conviction on the fraud charge helps to ‘save face’ for the law enforcement agencies,” said Cohen, a New York University law professor.

“But that conviction is subject to serious challenge concerning the evidence and the procedures in the case as well as the severity of the sentence for what was at most a minor transgression.”

Before joining the Times, Zhao was an investigative reporter for Chinese publications and wrote about complaints of official corruption and abuses in the countryside.