US brokers release of three Americans it says were wrongly detained in China

(Corrects to reflect that statement said released prisoners will return in paragraph 2)

By Trevor Hunnicutt

(Reuters) - The United States has brokered the release of three Americans it said had been wrongfully detained in China for many years, the White House said in a statement on Wednesday.

The White House national security council named the three as Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung and said all the U.S. citizens it deemed to have been wrongly detained in China will return and be reunited with their families. China says such cases are handled according to law.

Politico said the deal had taken years to finalise and that in return, a number of Chinese citizens detained in the United States would also be released.

A U.S. official said President Joe Biden had pressed for the return of the three when he met Chinese President Xi Jinping this month at a regional summit in Peru.

In September, China freed U.S. pastor David Lin, who had been in jail since 2006.

(This story has been corrected to reflect that the statement said the released prisoners 'will return,' not 'are home,' in paragraph 2)

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Writing by Susan Heavey and David Ljunggren; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Timothy Heritage)