China jails 'spy' reporter

Adjust font size:

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China sentenced Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong-based reporter for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, to 5 years in jail on charges of spying for Taiwan, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.

Ching was arrested in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in April 2005, but only received his sentence Thursday.

He was arrested for reportedly trying to collect documents related to Zhao Ziyang, the deceased former Communist Party leader who was ousted after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

As a part of his sentence, Ching was deprived of political rights for one year and had personal property worth about $37,500 confiscated, according to a document released by the court and reported by Xinhua.

The document stated Ching gave authorities his notebook computer, which contained "evidence of espionage" and "voluntarily confessed to more espionage activities than those the state security departments had known about" while in jail.

Ching was also linked with two people from a Taiwan foundation, which the Chinese court later learned "was actually an espionage organization," the document said. Ching reportedly received payments from the organization after supplying them information involving state secrets and intelligence.

Xinhua reported the court said Ching has the right to appeal.

Ching is the second foreign journalist to be sentenced by China in the last week for releasing state secrets. New York Times researcher Zhao Yan was sentenced to three years in prison.

Zhao's arrest on October 20, 2004 came after the Times published a story saying then-President Jiang Zemin would be stepping down as head of the military.

He was acquitted on charges of revealing state secrets but convicted of a lesser count of fraud and sentenced to three years in prison.

CNN's Jaime FlorCruz in Beijing contributed to this report