Sweden charges Tibetan with spying for China

Stockholm, April 12 (IANS) Sweden has charged a 49-year-old Tibetan man living in the country for spying on fellow exiles for the Chinese government, the media reported on Thursday.

Swedish state prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said the man, who was working for the Voice of Tibet daily, 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", the Guardian reported.

According to Ljungqvist, the man had been in touch with Chinese officials in Poland and Finland. 

He had been paid 50,000 krona ($5,980) on one occasion. Ljungqvist said the man had been deeply embedded in the Tibetan community.

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, reports the Guardian. 

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.

Sweden is home to about 140 Tibetan exiles.