A U.S. citizen and 4 Chinese language intelligence officers have been charged with spying on Chinese language dissidents, human rights leaders and pro-democracy activists residing in the USA, the Division of Justice stated on Wednesday.
The indictment accuses Wang Shujun, of Queens, New York, of utilizing his standing inside Chinese language diaspora and dissident communities to gather details about activists on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Safety.
Wang, 73, was arrested on March 16 and can be arraigned at a later date, the Justice Division stated. The 4 MSS officers, who the division named as Feng He, Jie Ji, Ming Li and Keqing Lu, are nonetheless at giant, it added. The indictment was unsealed on Tuesday in a federal courtroom in Brooklyn.
“At the moment’s indictment exposes and disrupts an operation by the PRC (Folks’s Republic of China) that threatens the security and freedom of Chinese language nationals residing in the USA on account of their pro-democracy beliefs and speech,” U.S. Legal professional for the Japanese District of New York Breon Peace stated.
Representatives for Wang weren’t instantly reachable for remark.
“The so-called accusations made by the U.S. is a pure fabrication,” the Chinese language embassy in Washington, D.C., stated in a written assertion supplied to Reuters.
“We urge the U.S. facet to conduct a good and lawful investigation, correctly deal with related circumstances, and safeguard the authorized rights of the Chinese language residents concerned.”
Wang has supplied info to the MSS since not less than 2011, the indictment alleges.
The MSS officers directed Wang to focus on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, advocates for Taiwanese independence and Uyghur and Tibetan activists, it says.
