DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) -A former assistant to a top politician for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly five years in prison for spying for China in a case that has fuelled concern about Europe being a target for Chinese espionage.

The defendant, identified only as German national Jian G. in line with German privacy rules, had been spying on Chinese dissidents in Europe and sharing information from the European parliament with Chinese intelligence, a judge for the Dresden Higher Regional Court said.

Jian G. had been charged with working for a Chinese intelligence service since 2002 and gathering documents and files from the European Parliament while working for Maximilian Krah, a former European lawmaker who now represents the AfD in Germany’

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