Tiananmen Square student protest leader arrested, report says

A former student leader of China's Tiananmen Square protests has been arrested on fraud charges, a report said Wednesday.

Word of Zhou Yongjun's arrest comes roughly three weeks before the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy demonstrations, the Reuters news agency said.

Zhou, who is a permanent resident of the United States, has been held for months in secret detention after returning to China from California, the report said.

He was charged in his home city of Suining, in Sichuan province, his brother Zhou Lin told Reuters. The family received notice of the arrest Wednesday.

Zhou, 41, was a law student who helped lead the Beijing Students' Autonomous Union during the 1989 demonstrations for political reform of China's Communist government.

He was protesting in the square on June 4 that year when Chinese tanks and armed troops moved in to break up the demonstrations. Hundred of people, possibly thousands, were killed.

Zhou fled to the U.S. in 1993, but returned to China in 1998. He spent three years in a "re-education through labour" program before returning to the U.S. in 2002.

He recently moved to Suining because his father is ill, his partner, Zhang Yuewei, told Reuters from her home in California.