China says ex-engineer to be executed for spying

A former Chinese engineer has been sentenced to death for leaking state secrets to a foreign power, Beijing's spy agency said Wednesday.

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The man, surnamed Liu, “secretly copied, duplicated, and sold a large volume of state secrets to a foreign espionage and intelligence agency”, China’s Ministry of State Security said in a post to its official WeChat account.

Liu had worked as an assistant engineer at a research institute and had resigned after believing he had been treated unfairly, the ministry said.

Before leaving, however, he “secretly copied and retained a large quantity of classified materials he had handled, intending to use them later for retaliation or blackmail against his superiors”, it added.

The ministry did not state the research institute which employed Liu, nor did it give his full name.