HONG KONG (Reuters) – A former worker working for one in all China’s state companies has been given a uncommon dying sentence for leaking “state secrets,” the Ministry of State Safety stated on Wednesday, after he was accused of handing over his USB drive to international spy companies.
The case underscores China’s intense crackdown on espionage actions and highlights escalating pressure between China and different nations on nationwide safety points.
A person surnamed Zhang supplied a “large number of top-secret and confidential state secrets to foreign spy intelligence agencies, seriously endangering China’s national security”, the ministry posted on messaging utility WeChat.
It didn’t reveal his full title or his earlier job place. Reuters was unable to contact Zhang for remark.
Zhang was as soon as “a core confidential personnel of a state agency” and was uncovered to numerous state secrets and techniques at work, the ministry stated.
After leaving his job, Zhang grew to become an “important target for foreign spy intelligence agencies to win over and subvert”.
“Zhang, who was weak in character and could not resist the temptation of money, became a ‘puppet’ controlled and used by the other party,” the ministry stated.
Zhang travelled exterior of China to satisfy with a international spy surnamed Li who compelled him to signal a cooperation settlement. Li seized Zhang’s USB work flash drive and private belongings, the ministry stated.
After receiving coaching from the international spy company, Zhang grew to become “a secret-stealing black hand controlled and used by the foreign intelligence agency”.
Chinese language lawmakers handed a wide-ranging replace to Beijing’s anti-espionage laws in April, banning the switch of any info associated to nationwide safety and broadening the definition of spying.
In a separate case earlier this 12 months, a Beijing courtroom handed Australian author Yang Hengjun a suspended dying sentence on espionage costs in February, a call the Australian authorities described as “harrowing”.
A suspended dying sentence in China provides the accused a two-year reprieve from being executed, after which it’s routinely transformed to life imprisonment, or extra hardly ever, fixed-term imprisonment. The person stays in jail all through.
In Zhang’s case there was no point out of a suspended dying sentence.
