A court in China has sentenced a former high-tech researcher to death for selling classified information, which is a state secret, the Asian country's Ministry of State Security announced.
The defendant, surnamed Liu, was also deprived of his political rights for life, the ministry said in a statement.
“The state security organs discovered and obtained detailed information about citizen Liu's contacts with foreign intelligence services and arrested him in accordance with the law“, the ministry stressed.
The man worked as an assistant engineer at a research institute. He believes he was treated unfairly in his job, was not evaluated and was not promoted, the report says. He decided to leave, but before doing so, he secretly copied and saved a large amount of confidential information he was working with.
The man started trading on the stock exchange, but lost a lot of money and got into deep debt. Under enormous economic pressure, the former research assistant decided to sell the confidential information to a foreign intelligence agency, the ministry said. Later, "he secretly traveled to many countries and revealed serious state secrets," the ministry's statement emphasized. After interrogation, the citizen confessed to the crimes committed.