Director of US-based thinktank faces charges of acting as Chinese agent
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New York: The US federal prosecutors charged an American- Israel citizen with acting as an unregistered agent of China.
Gal Luft involved in seeking ‘to broker the sale of weapons and Iranian oil’, The Guardian reported.
Luft is not currently in US custody after fleeing Cyprus where he was awaiting extradition having been released on bail following arrest there in February.
The 57-year-old is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which claims to be a Washington based think tank focusing on energy among other areas.
He is accused of recruiting and paying a top US official on behalf elements in China in 2016.
Luft faces the charge of pushing the official, an adviser to former US President Donald Trump whose identity is withheld, to ‘support policies favorable to China’, according to the report.
It is now revealed that Luft drafted comments in the name of the Trump’ s adviser that got published in a Chinese newspaper.
A tweet , believed to be from his account said on February 18 that he had never been an arm dealer and termed the arrest ‘ politically motivated’.
The thinktank in Washington, refused to respond to press inquiry by the news agency Reuters.
Flouting requirement of a license as per US law, Luft allegedly brokered a deal for Chinese companies to sell weapons to Libya, the United Arab Emirates and Kenya,
He allegedly arranged meetings for oil deals between Chinese companies and Iranian officials even as Iran is under US sanctions.