By Choekyi Lhamo
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 19: The New York Police Department (NYPD) cop who was charged with spying on Tibetans was released on $2 million bond on Feb. 12 from federal jail after contracting COVID-19, according to Newsday. Baimadajie Angwang (Pema Dhargyal Ngawang) is a naturalized US citizen from Tibet who has been held in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since he was arrested in September 2020.
A federal magistrate ordered his release after he was fitted with an electronic ankle monitoring device. His attorney John Carman said that the former cop’s release was recorded at 12:45 pm, “Mr. Angwang is free today on the strength of 13 people who believed in him so much that they committed to $ 2 million bond. He is going to enjoy an evening with his wife and daughter.”
The 33-year-old was denied bail in October last year by the US Destrict Judge Eric Komittee, who said that his situation had notably changed this time, citing reasons such as the increase in the proposed bond from $1 million to $2 million, and noting that prosecutors had not opposed bail for a number of other people recently accused of being Chinese agents in an unrelated case.
Magistrate Vera Scanlon in a telephone conference at the federal court in Brooklyn said that Angwang would be confined to his home except for trips to his lawyer and doctors, and could not travel outside the Eastern District. Though not specifically charged with espionage, he is accused of providing his handlers at the Chinese consulate in New York with information on the activities of the Tibetan community in the US. Defense lawyer Carman said that his client was only providing publicly available information to procure better visa terms for himself and other Tibetan nationals.
3 Responses
most Tibetans will disagree, but the way he acted doesn’t seem like a job by a professional spy trained in secret communication methods with deep end-to-end encryption. He looks more like ingratiating himself to Chinese embassy in order to get a 10-year – multi-entry visa. He was pushing himself hard towards the boss in Chinese embassy.
Moreover, a real Chinese spy will NOT have obviously Chinese names like BaimaDaiji Angwang, meaning Pema Dhargay Ngawang.
This got me thinking – did Chinese government deliberately set him up as ” a Tibetan origin Chinese spy who claimed asylum and did a good job” in order to trick USA government into extreme scrutinization of genuine Tibetan asylum claimants? It could be that China wants to limit growing Tibetan population in USA as they are highly effective in political activities and getting things like Tibet Support Act policy 2020 passed as US citizens. Another impact of this case is that Tibetan refugees from Tibet with American passport visiting Tibet raise doubts amongst US intelligence services. Tibetan refugees are now tainted.
There’s no benefit in publicizing baimadaiji case. It is better to forget this case, and let FBI deal with it.
We Tibetans have to make sure that US doesn’t focus their attention on Tibetans seeking asylum and instead focus on China who plays deep tricks from the Art of War by Sun Zu of giving false appearances to confuse the enemy.
Or if Baimadaiji is a real Chinese spy sent by Beijing, then China has very poor expoinage or intelligence service, worse than Somalia. My prediction – Court might find him innocent of chinese spy charge.
Why would this guy tell the Tibetans living in Queens NY to not fly the Tibetan flag at their community building? Why could he not speak Tibetan properly? If you read the story that is told by the Tibetans in NY, this is what you would read! Your explanation of this guy not being a Chinese spy doesn’t make any sense.
It would seem money talks. Is that why the world is in the situation it is now? You are nobody until you have money to flaunt? Or have connections that can flaunt money for you?
In the act of creating democracy, have we debased human values to just the concept of wealth? Seems the exact opposite trend of Siddartha?