Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Chinese academic was convicted on Tuesday of illegally acting as a foreign agent in the United States to collect information on pro-democracy activists in New York and share his findings with Beijing.
After a weeklong trial in Brooklyn federal court, a jury found Wang Shujun guilty on four counts, including acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. attorney general and lying to U.S. authorities.
Wang could face up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on January 9, 2025.
Federal prosecutors said Wang, a naturalized U.S. citizen, portrayed himself as a fierce opponent of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to win the trust of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, Taiwanese independence advocates and Uyghur and Tibetan rights activists.
Prosecutors said Wang actually spied on activists and shared his findings with four officials from China’s intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security.
“The indictment may be the stuff of a spy novel, but the evidence is shockingly real,” Bren Pease, the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, said in a statement. “Wang was willing to betray those who respected and trusted him. people.”
Mr. Wang immigrated to the United States in 1994 and was arrested in March 2022.
Defense lawyer Zachary Margulies-Onuma said Wang spoke to intelligence officials about the pro-democracy movement to win their support and promote social change, rather than act as their agent.
Margulies-Onuma said he respected the jury’s verdict and asked that Wang be spared the “pain” of prison.
“We look forward to the sentencing,” Margulies-Onuma told reporters after the verdict. “He was a 76-year-old man. He certainly had no intention of harming anyone. He had spent his whole life fighting against the communist regime.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has in recent years cracked down on what it calls “transnational repression” by U.S. adversaries such as China and Iran.
The term refers to surveillance, intimidation, and in some cases attempts to deport or murder activists who oppose these governments.
Last year, a former New York City police officer was convicted and faced charges of acting as a Chinese agent to intimidate an American fugitive from returning to his home country.
U.S. prosecutors have also charged four Chinese intelligence officials who allegedly acted as Wang’s handlers. The officials are currently on the run and are believed to be in China.
