UCLA trio fly home after Trump plea to Xi
Print Edition
THREE UCLA basketball players detained in China on suspicion of shoplifting headed back to the United States yesterday after US President Donald Trump said he had sought the help of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Delta Air Lines staff confirmed the players had boarded a flight from Shanghai to Los Angeles.
“What they did was unfortunate,” Trump told reporters earlier.
He said the three, who had been held since last week, could have faced long prison sentences, and described Xi’s response as “terrific.”
Trump raised the issue with Xi at a dinner during the US leader’s state visit to China last week.
The basketball players from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) were detained by police on November 7 in the eastern city of Hangzhou over allegations of shoplifting. They were not on the team’s return flight to the US last Saturday.
The UCLA team had been in China for a game against Georgia Tech in Shanghai, which they won 63-60. Earlier, the teams were in Hangzhou to visit the headquarters of the game’s sponsor, Alibaba Group.
The three students — freshmen LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill — were taken in for questioning by police about alleged shoplifting from a Louis Vuitton store during the Hangzhou visit.
They were released on November 8, but barred from leaving China and confined to a hotel pending legal proceedings, sources familiar with the matter said.
Citing a source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation, sports channel ESPN said last week that the players could be in Hangzhou for “a week or two” while the situation is resolved.
The source told ESPN there is surveillance footage of the players shoplifting from three stores inside a high-end retail center.
Shoplifting can bring jail time in China depending on the value of the goods.
The case has raised waves in the US due to the involvement of LiAngelo Ball, one of three high-profile basketball-playing sons of LaVar Ball.
The elder Ball has become a media personality by aggressively promoting his sons as future NBA superstars and traveled to China on the trip to promote his Big Baller Brand shoe and apparel line.
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