US State Department on Thursday expressed regret over the beating of Chinese businesswoman Zhao Yan by officers of the US Customs and Border Protection.

"We regret the apparent mistreatment of a Chinese national by a US customs officer in the Niagara Falls. We have communicated to the Chinese Government that the US customs officer was arrested by the Customs and Border Patrol Police and his case referred for criminal prosecution," the State Department said in a statement.

"Secretary (Colin) Powell has been very clear that America is an open society. We welcome visitors from around the world, and our goal is to ensure that they have a safe and enjoyable stay in the United States. The United States will continue to work to ensure that incidents such as this one do not occur again," the statement said.

US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has expressed "great regret" over the beating of Chinese businesswoman Zhao Yan by officers of the US Customs and Border Protection last week, officials of the Chinese embassy said on Thursday, July 29.

In a telephone call to Lan Lijun, charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy, Ridge described the beating of the Chinese businesswoman as "a horrible incident" which was "totally unacceptable" and expressed "great regret" to the Chinese government and people.

Ridge said that Robert Rhodes, the first officer of the US Customs and Border Protection to attack Zhao Yan, had been charged with felony assault, Chinese embassy officials said.

Ridge said he had asked the US Customs and Border Protection officers to take measures to prevent such incidents from happening again, Chinese embassy officials said.

Zhao Yan, a businesswoman from China's northern coastal city of Tianjin, was on her first US business trip when she was attacked at the Niagara Falls near the US-Canadian border on July 21 by Rhodes and other officers of the US Customs and Border Protection.

Zhao Yan said on Wednesday that six days after she was brutally attacked, she was still suffering from a bad headache, swollen eyes and mental trauma. She also had a broken tooth and severe back pains which forced her to ride a wheelchair.

Because of the sharp physical pain and mental trauma caused by the beating, she could "barely sleep two to three hours a day."

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday, urged the US government to carry out a thorough investigation intothe attack and bring those responsible for the incident to justice.

In a letter to Li Zhaoxing on Thursday, Powell promised that the US government would thoroughly investigate the beating case.

Source: Xinhua