HONG KONG (AFP) - Two former senior Chinese envoys to Hong Kong have been jailed in China on charges of spying for Britain.
Cai Xiaohong became the highest-ranking mainland official to be convicted of spying for the West when he was jailed for 15 years after a secret trial in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the South China Morning Post reported, citing Chinese sources.
Wei Pingyuan, another high-ranking envoy to Hong Kong, was also convicted, the report said.
A third official, Liu Lin, was awaiting sentencing, the report said. Liu was a former chief of staff at the Xinhua news agency, China's de facto embassy here during British rule.
Cai, the former secretary-general of Beijing's Hong Kong Liaison Office -- the representative office of the central government -- was arrested last year after accepting six million Hong Kong dollars (770,000 US dollars) for passing on state secrets, the report said.
He received a more lenient sentence because he had shown remorse and, unlike Wei, had not joined the British secret service, the report said.
The espionage sentences are the latest meted out to former officials of mainland institutions in Hong Kong.
In February last year Hong Kong businessman Chen Yu-lin was jailed for life for passing on state secrets while employed at Xinhua before the city was handed back to China in 1997.
He was sentenced in a Guangdong court for handing sensitive documents to colonial government officials between 1985 and 1993 in return for 200,000 Hong Kong dollars.
11/08/2004 - 05:03 GMT - AFP