Published by: World Tibet Network News, Saturday, October 26, 1996

WASHINGTON, Oct 24, 1996 (Dow Jones)--The United States is urging China to release a Tibetan music teacher accused of gathering sensitive material for the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile.

Ngawang Choephel, a former Fulbright scholar who teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont, disappeared after traveling to Tibet in August 1995.

''There's no evidence that he committed any crime,'' Nicholas Burns, the State Department spokesman, said.

''We believe he is not involved in anything other than pursuing his professional interests in the field of ethnomusicology,'' Burns said.