Washington [US], September 12: The US Department of Justice on September 11 announced the sentence for a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who provided "a large amount of classified US defense information " to China.
The US Justice Department announced that former CIA officer Alexander Yuk Ching Ma (71 years old) was sentenced to 10 years in prison on September 11 after pleading guilty to spying for China , according to Reuters.
In May, the US Justice Department said Mr. Ma, a Hong Kong native who became a naturalized US citizen, admitted to providing "a significant amount of classified US defense information " to the Chinese government in 2001. Mr. Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 to 1989.
Mr Ma's meeting with representatives of the Shanghai State Security Bureau was initiated by another former CIA officer. That former CIA officer, a relative of Mr Ma, was born in Shanghai and is also a naturalized US citizen, and was identified in the US Justice Department's announcement as "co-conspirator 1", according to AFP, citing the US Justice Department's announcement.
Also according to the announcement from the US Justice Department, at the end of the third day of the meeting at a hotel in Hong Kong, "Chinese intelligence officials provided co-defendant #1 with $50,000 in cash that Ma counted." Mr. Ma and co-defendant #1 also agreed to continue to assist Chinese intelligence.
According to the plea agreement, in March 2003, while living in Hawaii, Mr. Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist at the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) office in Honolulu, Hawaii .
Knowing of Mr. Ma's ties to Chinese intelligence, the FBI hired him as part of an investigative plan, working in a location where his activities could be monitored and his connections to China investigated. Mr. Ma worked for the FBI from August 2004 to October 2012.
By 2006, Mr. Ma "persuaded co-conspirator No. 1 to provide the identities of at least two individuals depicted in photographs provided to Ma by Chinese intelligence." Mr. Ma was arrested in August 2020, and prosecutors said co-conspirator No. 1 has since died.
Mr. Ma admitted that the information given, as well as what he provided in 2001, "would be used to harm the United States or benefit" the Chinese government.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper