China Jails Tibet Scholar as Spy
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BEIJING — A Chinese court has sentenced a U.S.-educated Tibetan music scholar to 18 years in prison for spying on China for the exiled Dalai Lama and others.
Chinese police arrested Ngawang Choephel in August 1995, one month after he returned to Tibet from the United States to videotape folk songs and dances, government-run Radio Tibet said Friday in a report monitored by the BBC.
“He later confessed to having been sent by ‘the Dalai clique’ on behalf of an unnamed foreign country to Tibet and to conducting espionage activities under the pretext of collecting Tibetan folk songs and dances,” Radio Tibet said.
The report did not say when he was sentenced or provide details about his alleged spying.
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