They spent their old days between Paris and Burgundy. They will now have to spend part of their retirement in prison. Two former French intelligence agents, who were on trial for betraying for the benefit of China, were sentenced Friday in Paris to 8 and 12 years in prison, in a very rare trial, which was held behind closed doors .
The two men are former agents of the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), the French spy service. They rubbed shoulders with counterintelligence. They were tried for "delivering information to a foreign power", "damaging the fundamental interests of the Nation", "intelligence with a foreign power".
Pierre-Marie H., 69, a former civilian defense official, was sentenced to 12 years in criminal detention. The public prosecutor's office had requested the maximum penalty, 15 years, against him.
Henri M., 73, a professional soldier who spent part of his life in China, was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment, while the public prosecutor's office had requested 10 years of imprisonment against him.
Deprived of civil rights for 10 years
The wife of Pierre-Marie H., who appeared for "concealment of property from intelligence with a foreign power likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation", she was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment including 2 years suspended.
The Assize Court, composed entirely of professional judges, pronounced the additional penalty of deprivation of civil rights for 10 years for all three.
Information is scarce. It is a case of "penetration by a foreign power of French intelligence", said the Advocate General Monday, before requesting the camera.
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Request accepted: "It seems necessary not only to protect witnesses and to prevent the disclosure of information relating to national defense," said the president.
A rare trial
The former agents were indicted and remanded in December 2017, when they were already retired.
Twenty years earlier, Henri M. had been appointed official representative of the DGSE in Beijing. But he was recalled to France in early 1998, after having started a liaison with the Chinese interpreter of the ambassador. He retired a few years later and returned to China in 2003, where he married the ex-interpreter.
Pierre-Marie H. was arrested at Zurich airport with cash after meeting a Chinese contact on an island in the Indian Ocean. He has never been posted abroad.
As the Advocate General pointed out on Monday, this is a trial "rare by qualifications, rare by the quality of the accused, rare by the period of prevention".
