Queens Police Officer Baimadajie Angwang of the 111th Precinct was charged by the government with illegally acting as an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.
Baimadajie Angwang, a Tibetan police officer in the 111th Precinct in Queens, New York, accused of acting as a Chinese Communist Party agent, has been offered a plea agreement that would sentence him to a maximum of 10 years in prison, from the term he served in custody.
As the case entered the pre-trial discovery phase, the federal court for the Eastern District of New York convened yesterday (Jan. 6) for the prosecution and defense to deliberate on trial preparations. Onwong’s defense attorney, John Carman, said during the conference call that living conditions at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center are so strict due to the increased controls of the epidemic that it is difficult for attorneys to adequately discuss the case with their clients, including plea agreements.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Claffee mentioned during the meeting that a plea deal was offered to Onwong.
Attorney Kamen later outlined its details to newsday. Carmen said sentencing in the case will be determined by the presiding judge because there are few precedents for this type of case, according to sentencing guidelines.
The defense attorney said the plea agreement does not address whether Ngawang will lose his citizenship if he accepts the plea.
In addition to the fact that he and Onwong can barely see each other, Carman said, Onwong is under extremely strict supervision conditions: 23.5 hours on weekdays; 24-hour release on weekends, and only two to three showers a week.
Carman said he may try again to apply for bail for Ngwang, adding to the previous $1 million bail.
According to a report the prosecution recently submitted to the court, evidence the prosecution has collected includes: Chinese audio listening typing of 13 audio calls made by Aung-Wang (with the Chinese consulate) between Sept. 4, 2018, and Dec. 22, 2019; items searched by law enforcement officers on the day of Aung-Wang’s arrest; reports of investigations into Aung-Wang’s family members and their presence in China; records from electronic platforms such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo used by Aung-Wang; bank records, driving records and more.
If the parties are unable to reach a plea bargain, for example, if the defense maintains its innocence, then the case will proceed to a final trial. The prosecution is prepared to call a language expert to testify about the translated documents and the content of the listening sessions, and is also expected to call experts at the trial to testify about the history of the Tibetan diaspora, its status in China and its relationship between Tibetans and the Chinese Communist Party.
Yale Tibetan Student: U.S. Should Scrutinize Pro-Communist Groups
Last September, the U.S. Justice Department’s indictment and charges against Ngawang, a small community of about 26,700 people, shocked the Tibetan-American community. on Jan. 5, Kelsang Dolma, a Yale graduate, wrote in Foreign Policy that refugees are victims, not accomplices, of Chinese espionage. According to the article, this Tibetan case reveals how the Chinese Communist Party coerces communities around the world.
In the article, Drolma says that Ngawang’s name, Pema Dhargyal Ngawang, is the Chinese cultural version of the Tibetan word Pema Dhargyal Ngawang, and that Ngawang does not speak Tibetan, but that this is not uncommon for young Chinese (he was born in the Tibetan-Sichuan border region, which is already heavily Sinicized).
The Ngawang case is unprecedented. The article says that many of the Chinese Communist Party’s spying activities targeted Dharamshala, India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, but the Ngawang case is one of the first major cases against the Tibetan-American community.
According to a press conference held by the Tibetan Association of New York and New Jersey after Ngawang’s arrest, Ngawang won the trust of members of the local Tibetan community by offering to help young Tibetans obtain safe police jobs. Members of the Tibetan community were initially confused when Ngawang communicated with them in a raw, incomprehensible Tibetan language, but his comments made them even more uneasy.
According to the article, Ngawang suggested that the Tibetan Community Center remove the Tibetan flag from outside the building, saying it would “alienate non-Tibetans” and that Tibetan organizations in New York should avoid political topics, saying it would attract donations from community businessmen. Alarmed by his move, members of the Tibetan community searched Ngawang’s Facebook page and found that his wife was involved in a New Year’s event organized by the Chinese Consulate in New York.
Ngawang has also returned to China several times, casting doubt on the Tibetan community’s claims that he was previously tortured by the Chinese Communist Party. “Ngawang has fooled the U.S. political asylum system, but not his fellow Tibetans,” Drolma said in the article, adding that when confronted with questions, Ngawang admitted his ties to the Chinese consulate, and Tibetan community leaders told him not to return to the community center and suspended contact with him as a result. But Ngawang still insisted on calling the community center’s answering machine.
This is one of the cases in which the Chinese Consulate has attempted to infiltrate the Tibetan community in the United States. A few months ago, the Chinese Consulate in New York sponsored an exhibit at the Queens Public Library in Amherst that attempted to create the illusion of “happiness and stability” in Tibet without mentioning the Communist authorities’ repressive tactics against Tibetans, and was shut down after protests by Tibetan groups.
The article argues that the communities that the Chinese Communist Party terrorizes are its victims, not its accomplices. This CCP proxy case should be the catalyst for stricter U.S. scrutiny of CCP satellite organizations (rather than asylum-seeking organizations).
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