US: Former CIA officer pleads guilty to providing national defence information to China

US Navy aircraft fly in formation during a joint exercise. File pic/X

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer targeted in an FBI undercover operation pleaded guilty on Friday to providing national defence information to China, the US Justice Department said, CNN reported.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma (71) of Honolulu, who served as a CIA officer for more than seven years in the 1980s, worked with an unnamed co-conspirator in 2001 to provide Chinese intelligence "with a large volume of classified US national defense information" in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars, the US Department of Justice said, citing the plea agreement, CNN reported.

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Later, Ma applied as a linguist with the FBI's Honolulu Field Office, where he worked from 2004 to 2012, the report said. In a press release, the US Department of Justice stated, "The FBI, aware of Ma's ties to PRC (People's Republic of China) intelligence, hired Ma, as part of an investigative plan, to work at an off-site location where his activities could be monitored and his contacts with the PRC investigated."

During the course of his monitored employment with the FBI, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma allegedly took a digital camera into the FBI office to take pictures of sensitive documents that he would then take to his handlers in China, CNN reported.

Mentioning one particular set of classified documents provided to Chinese intelligence officers, the US Justice Department said, "Ma confessed that he knew that this information, and the information communicated in March 2001, would be used to injure the United States or to benefit the PRC."

The US Department of Justice said, "Under the terms of the parties' plea agreement, Ma must cooperate with the United States, including by submitting to debriefings by US government agencies," CNN reported. If the court accepts Ma's plea, former CIA officer faces a sentence of 10 years in federal prison at a hearing due to take place on September 11.

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