Beijing – A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for selling 150,000 classified documents that revealed key secrets about military and government data encryption to an unidentified foreign spy agency, state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Huang Yu, a former computer technician at a Chinese research firm specializing in encryption, received $700,000 for providing the documents between 2002 and 2011, CCTV said.
It did not say when Huang, 41, was tried on the espionage charge. The case was publicized as part of a national campaign to raise public awareness about state security following China’s first national security education day last Friday.
CCTV said Huang leaked highly classified national secrets and caused “immeasurable” damage to the security of encrypted communications used by multiple departments within the ruling Communist Party, the government, the military and the financial sector.
Huang began leaking secrets in revenge for poor performance evaluations that eventually got him fired by the company in 2004, CCTV said. After leaving the firm, he used his wife, brother-in-law and former colleagues to pilfer more classified documents and traveled repeatedly to Southeast Asia to trade them for cash, the state broadcaster said. Huang’s wife was sentenced to five years in prison and his brother-in-law to three years for their involvement, it said.
Huang was shown with his head shaved and dressed in prison garb discussing his case on television. He urged others aiding foreign countries in spying against China to turn themselves in.
“It’s better for your family and for you,” he said.
Following Huang’s arrest, 29 people at his former workplace were given administrative penalties, indicating inspectors had determined that the firm failed to secure its classified work, CCTV said.