British man accused of spying for China is found dead in park

HONG KONG — A former British marine accused of spying for Hong Kong authorities in Britain has died in unexplained circumstances, police said Tuesday.

Matthew Trickett, 37, was found by police late Sunday afternoon at Grenfell Park in Maidenhead, a town west of London, after a report from a member of the public. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“An investigation is ongoing into the death, which is currently being treated as unexplained,” Thames Valley police said in a statement, adding that a medical examination “will be conducted in due course. ” 

Trickett was one of three men charged last week under Britain’s National Security Act with assisting a foreign intelligence service and foreign interference. According to London’s Metropolitan Police, “the foreign intelligence service to which the above charges relate is that of Hong Kong.”

Trickett had been out on bail since their first court appearance on May 13 and was next due to appear in court this Friday. All of the three men — Trickett, Chung Biu Yuen, 63, and Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38 — have yet to enter pleas.

Chinese officials have criticized the charges, describing them as the latest in a series of “groundless and slanderous accusations” by London against Beijing amid rising tensions between the two countries over alleged Chinese espionage.

The government of Hong Kong demanded that Britain provide full details of the allegations and protect the rights of Yuen, who is the office manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London.

The Chinese Embassy in London and the Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to emailed requests on Wednesday for comment on Trickett’s death.

Trickett, who was from the Maidenhead area, was a former Royal Marine and had worked as a British immigration enforcement officer. He was also reportedly the director of a security consultancy.

In a statement shared with Reuters, Trickett’s family said they were “mourning the loss of a much-loved son, brother, and family member.” Trickett’s lawyer, Julian Hayes, said in the same statement that he was shocked at his client’s death but declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors allege that the three men engaged in information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception that were likely to materially assist the intelligence service in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, from late last year until May 2. Among the accusations is that they broke into a British residential address on May 1.

The British Foreign Office summoned Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang after the spying charges were announced last week. In a statement, it said it had told Zheng that the “recent pattern of behavior directed by China against the U.K.,” including cyberattacks and the issuing of bounties on Hong Kong democracy activists living in Britain, was “not acceptable.”

Waves of people have left Hong Kong since 2020, when Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the Chinese territory in response to months of sometimes-violent anti-government protests in 2019. Chinese officials say the law was necessary to restore stability, while critics say it has enabled a crackdown on dissent.

The South China Morning Post reported in February that almost 185,000 people had left Hong Kong for Britain since January 2021 under a special visa program announced after the enactment of the national security law.

Rights advocates say that, like Chinese dissidents elsewhere in the world, Hongkongers living in Britain face “transnational repression” by the Chinese government and its supporters. Beijing denies the allegations.