Prague court acquits suspected Chinese spy Yang Yiming

Prague Municipal Court judge Tome Frankič found that Yiming worked for Chinese intelligence while posing as a correspondent for a Chinese media outlet. He accepted assignments to covertly pass on information he gathered about politicians and other public figures. But the prosecution did not prove that he had “intentionally endangered or damaged the constitutional order, territorial integrity, defence or security of the Czech Republic, or undermined its sovereignty,” the court found.

The case was the first of its kind in the modern Czech Republic. Previously, espionage could be prosecuted only when authorities could show that a suspect had obtained classified material, such as government documents or intelligence-service records.

Czech security officials had long argued that this definition was too narrow to address espionage. Information about people’s private lives—including alcoholism or intimate relationships—could potentially be used to blackmail them and advance the interests of foreign powers, the article said.

The previous Czech government responded by creating a broader offence: unauthorised activity for a foreign power. To bring a case under the offence, authorities must prove activity on behalf of a foreign power and an intent to endanger the Czech Republic’s constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial integrity, defence or security.