A Chinese court has jailed a Hong Kong resident with dual British citizenship for life for spying for the territory's former colonial masters, newspapers reported on Saturday.
China's state media made no mention of the conviction as Beijing waged an increasingly harsh campaign to silence demands for more voting rights in the former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
Chen Yulin, 53, former secretary to the deputy director of the Hong Kong branch of China's Xinhua state news agency, would appeal against the sentence handed down by the People's Intermediate Court in southern Guangzhou on Friday, the South China Morning Post and The Standard reported.
Chen, also known as Chan Yu-lam, was taken into Chinese custody in January 2003 along with two other Hong Kong residents who also held British National Overseas passports.