The son of kung fu movie star Jackie Chan has been released after being jailed for six months in China for drug offenses.
Jaycee Chan was detained in August last year after he tested positive for marijuana and police found more than 100 grams of the drug in his Beijing apartment.
His management company, Mstones, said he was released early Friday morning and will hold a press conference on Saturday.
“He will make a formal public apology and give a full explanation,” the online statement said.
A Beijing court sentenced him in January but took into account the time he already spent in jail since last summer.
Chan pleaded guilty to “hosting others to take drugs,” was also fined 2,000 yuan ($320), announced the Dongcheng District People’s Court.
The Hong Kong native was arrested along with a Taiwanese actor, amid a government crackdown on celebrity drug offenders.
Although he did not attend the trial, Jackie Chan — who has starred in Hollywood blockbusters like “Rush Hour” and was named an anti-drugs ambassador in China in 2009 — had expressed anger and disappointment in his son in media interviews.
“I failed to discipline him — now the state is helping me discipline him and make him get rid all the bad habits,” the elder Chan, 60, told the state-run Xinhua news agency last December, while denying his son had received special treatment in jail.
The younger Chan’s case has put a spotlight on the Chinese capital’s intensifying anti-drugs campaign. By mid-November, the authorities had detained almost 10,000 people for using drugs, nearly double the previous year’s figure.
Announcing the numbers, a top anti-narcotics official in Beijing emphasized the government’s “zero-tolerance” stance on celebrity offenders due to the impact of their behavior on the youth.
Last August, dozens of management agencies representing actors and singers signed an agreement with Beijing authorities, banning drug use from the entertainment industry and pledging to fire any artists who break the law.
