On Monday, the US judiciary announced that a New York police officer - who is from Tibet - was charged with spying for Beijing, for collecting information for the Chinese government about the Tibetan community in New York, which Beijing denied.

According to the indictment, the 33-year-old officer was serving in a police commission in Northeast Queens, and was occupied by personnel from the Chinese Consulate in New York.

According to the accusation, between 2018 and 2020, this officer collected information related to the activities of the Tibetan community, and also provided his operators with potential intelligence sources.

The list indicated that the accused is also a reserve officer in the US Army, and that members of the Chinese Consulate were allowed to attend events organized by the New York Police Department.

The officer received tens of thousands of dollars from his Chinese operators for his services, according to the same source.

The Public Prosecution charged the officer with charges, including working for a foreign country on American soil, submitting false reports, and obstructing the functioning of a public facility.

A spokesman for the Federal District Attorney in Brooklyn said that the accused appeared on Monday before a judge who ordered him to be remanded in custody.

For his part, a spokesman for the New York Police Department said that the accused was temporarily suspended from service and cut off his salary.

Chinese denial

According to the indictment, the officer was born in China and obtained political asylum in the United States for allegedly being tortured at the hands of the Chinese authorities due to his Tibetan origins, but the investigation showed that his parents were members of the Chinese Communist Party.

New York Police Department chief Dermot Shi said that the arrested officer "breached every oath he took in this country: a first oath for the United States, a second oath for the United States Army, and a third oath for this police commission."

Today Beijing rejected the US accusations, as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the indictment against the officer "is pure fabrication, and is full of phrases such as: It appears, and it is likely," according to what was reported by the "Associated Press."

He added - in a press statement - that the incident is "a failed American conspiracy to discredit the Chinese consulate and its employees in the United States."

Commenting on the indictment, the International Campaign for Tibet (an organization that defends the rights of the region's residents) said that “if the courts prove the validity of these accusations, the case” will show that the Chinese Communist Party is involved in malicious operations to suppress any opposition, not only in Tibet (... ) But all over the world. "

Beijing had allowed Tibet to run its own affairs between 1912 and 1950, but it soon regained control over it in 1951, and since 1959 the Dalai Lama - the spiritual leader of the Tibetans - lives in exile.