Man convicted in Sweden of spying for China travelled to Poland: reports

A Swedish court in mid-June convicted a man of spying on Tibetan refugees and passing the information to an agent working for the Chinese security services, according to the Reuters news agency.

According to Poland’s niezalezna.pl website, the man was detained while returning from Poland where he passed information to an intelligence officer from the Chinese embassy in Warsaw.

The man, identified as Dorjee Gyantsan, 49, was paid for his services by the Chinese embassy, according to niezalezna.pl.

Reuters cited the court as saying that the convicted man had on several occasions travelled to Poland to meet a Chinese intelligence officer and that these meetings had been part of a wider operation to spy on Tibetans living in Sweden.

Gyantsan was sentenced to 22 months in prison, according to niezalezna.pl.

He was found guilty of gathering information on Tibetans residing in Sweden, including their political views and activities, from July 2015 to February 2017, the Polish website reported.

The convicted man was detained while returning from Warsaw with the equivalent of USD 6,000 in cash on him, niezalezna.pl said.

“Even if the information that the man gathered can seem trivial, it could have caused considerable damage to Tibetans both in Sweden and abroad,” the Swedish judge said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.

The niezalezna.pl website cited Gyantsan’s lawyer, Mikael Söderberg, as saying that his client denied the accusations and vowed to appeal the verdict.

China has ruled Tibet since 1950.

(gs)

Source: niezalezna.pl, Reuters