Sweden has charged a 49-year-old Tibetan man living in the country for spying on his fellow exiles for the Chinese government, according to Swedish media. State prosecutors said the man, who is Tibetan and was working for the newspaper Voice of Tibet, is suspected of supplying the Chinese government with information about the families, housing situations and travel plans of “certain people of importance to the Chinese regime”.
According to Swedish state prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist, the man had been in touch with Chinese officials in Poland and Finland. He had been paid 50,000 krona (£5,850) on one occasion. Ljungqvist said the man had been deeply embedded in the Tibetan community. “This is a very serious crime,” he told reporters. The prosecutor did not give the suspect’s name.
The arrest comes about two months after Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai was taken from a train in China in the presence of Swedish consular officials. Three weeks later a video surfaced in which Gui expressed his guilt over unspecified offences, an admission that human rights activists said was likely a forced confession.
