British prosecutors dropped a high-profile probe into a parliamentary aide and a teacher over a lack of evidence<\/p>\n
Senior UK security officials will face a probe over the collapse of a high-profile case in which two men, one of whom was a British parliamentary researcher, were accused of spying for China, according to Bloomberg on Tuesday, citing an anonymous source.
\nChristopher Cash and\u00a0financial analyst Christopher Berry were charged with sharing \u201cprejudicial information\u201d with\u00a0Beijing in April last year. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the charges against the two men just weeks before trial, citing \u201cevidential standards.\u201d\u00a0
\nThe decision has sparked outrage among MPs, who expect to grill officials on the collapse of the case at an upcoming parliamentary committee meeting.
\nReports in the UK media have suggested the case was axed to avoid souring relations with Beijing, one of London\u2019s biggest trade partners.
\nUK Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson, the case was dropped because London refused to brand China a threat, Sky News has reported.<\/p>\n
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China\u2019s \u2018super embassy\u2019 in London sparks spy panic<\/p>\n
None of the witness statements provided said that China \u201crepresented a threat to national security,\u201d and by August of this year, the prosecution realized that \u201cthis evidence would not be forthcoming,\u201d he wrote in a letter to MPs on Tuesday.
\nParkinson cited a case from earlier this year in which the CPS convicted six Bulgarian nationals of feeding information to Russia, which was ruled to be an \u2018enemy\u2019 for the purposes of the Official Secrets Act.<\/p>\n
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Hong Kong lashes out at UK over \u2018spy\u2019 claims<\/p>\n
Moscow denied the spying allegations at the time, accusing London of trying to stir up anti-Russian hysteria.
\nThe UK government has said it is not to blame for torpedoing the investigation, adding that it was a decision made by prosecutors who relied on language used by the previous government in its China policy.
\nLondon has recently moved to rebuild trade ties with Beijing, resuming Joint Economic and Trade Commission talks last month after a seven-year freeze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British prosecutors dropped a high-profile probe into a parliamentary aide and a teacher over a lack of evidence Senior UK security officials will face a probe over the collapse of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t