{"id":41364,"date":"2009-06-26T12:09:54","date_gmt":"2009-06-26T19:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=41364"},"modified":"2009-06-26T12:12:34","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T19:12:34","slug":"uyghur-charged-with-spying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2009\/06\/uyghur-charged-with-spying\/","title":{"rendered":"Uyghur Charged With Spying"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Swedish government has charged\u00a0Babur Mehsut,\u00a0an ethnic Uigher born in China who was naturalized as a Swedish citizen, with spying for the Chinese government:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>Born in the northwestern Chinese city of Lanzhou to a Uyghur father and an ethnic minority Hui Muslim mother, Babur later moved to Hotan in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), now China\u2019s northwesternmost province.<\/p>\n He entered Sweden as a political refugee in the late 1990s and became a Swedish citizen in 2002.<\/p>\n The chief prosecutor in the case, Tomas Lindstrand, told local media Babur was suspected on reasonable grounds of unlawful espionage from January 2008-June 2009, with activities both in Sweden and overseas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Swedish authorities allege that Mehsut was spying on the Uigher community in Sweden, and the Swedish government has expelled a Chinese diplomat in Sweden<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0China has responded by expelling a Swedish diplomat from China.<\/p>\n