The Chinese embassy in the UK has called on the British government to “stop its acts of slander and suppression” after a court jailed two men linked to the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London for up to 10 years for spying on activists.
Bill Yuen Chung-biu, an office manager at the office, was sentenced on Thursday to eight years behind bars for assisting a foreign intelligence service, while co-defendant Peter Wai Chi-leung, a security firm operator and former part-time UK Border Force officer, was imprisoned for 10 years for the same charge and another for misconduct in a public office.
Yuen, a retired police superintendent, was accused of passing surveillance requests from Hong Kong authorities to Wai while working at the trade office.
Wai was said to have used his position as a UK Border Force officer to obtain personal information on Hong Kong activists from official computer systems.
The Chinese embassy in the UK on Thursday said the sentencing was “the result of the British side’s abuse of the law and manipulation of judicial proceedings”.
“We strongly condemn the British side’s actions,” a spokesman for the embassy said.