Canadian intern was found near NATO supreme commander’s office, source says

Canadian intern was found near NATO supreme commander’s office, source says MARIE WOOLF OTTAWA PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER The Canadian intern charged with espionage at NATO headquarters in Belgium was found in April near the office of the alliance’s supreme commander after a fire alarm was pulled by a suspected accomplice, a Belgian source familiar with the case told The Globe and Mail. The intern’s unexpected appearance there triggered an investigation into her activities by the counterintelligence service of NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, known as SHAPE. It reported its concerns to Belgian military intelligence. In July, she was arrested by Belgian police and faces espionage charges on suspicion of spying for a third country. What we know so far about the Canadian NATO intern accused of spying for China Biwei Zhang (also known as Claire Zhang) is a former Canadian federal public servant who took an internship at SHAPE in Mons, Belgium, last year. Authorities in Belgium have not publicly named the country that Ms. Zhang is suspected of spying on behalf of, but two Canadian national-security sources have previously told The Globe and Mail that Belgian prosecutors have accused her of working on behalf of China. On April 21 this year, the intern, an IT specialist, was found near the building of U.S. General Alexus Grynkewich, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, as an evacuation of SHAPE’s personnel took place after the triggering of a fire alarm. Ms. Zhang, a naturalized Canadian of Chinese origin, had already come to the attention of SHAPE’s counterintelligence service after asking colleagues questions about the consequences of security protocol breaches. The Belgian source told The Globe on Friday that the investigation into Ms. Zhang, who is in pretrial detention in Belgium, is probing whether she was aided by accomplices both inside and outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The fire alarm is believed by investigators to have been triggered by someone other than Ms. Zhang, but they have not been identified, the source said. And on the day that it was triggered, according to the source, there was some suspicious activity in the access-control system of the building where the supreme NATO commander works. The Globe is not naming the Belgian source, who is not authorized publicly to discuss the investigation that led to Ms. Zhang’s arrest. They said that after she was arrested and…