Deposed Chinese leader pleaded for freedom in previously unpublished letter to party leaders

Photo: Deposed Chinese leader pleaded for freedom in previously unpublished letter to party leaders

Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded broadcaster, said it obtained a previously unpublished letter dated Oct. 13, 1997 in which Zhao - purged from his position for sympathizing with pro-democracy protesters in 1989 - asked party leaders to lift his house arrest.

"I hope my house arrest will be lifted soon to restore my personal freedom, so that I no longer have to live out the remainder of my years in loneliness and confinement," it said.

The letter was to be published in Hong Kong on Saturday in a book that also features essays and poems commemorating Zhao, Radio Free Asia said.

As premier and then party leader in the 1980s, Zhao spearheaded economic reforms under China's then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.

He was ousted after sympathizing with student protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, in which hundreds, if not thousands, died in a military crackdown, the AP reports.

Since 1989, Zhao's name has been rarely acknowledged by the government, which is still wary of stirring up sympathy for his liberal views.