CBC identifies Canadian woman accused of spying at NATO military HQ

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CBC identifies Canadian woman accused of spying at NATO military HQ

The Canadian woman recently arrested by Belgian authorities on suspicion of spying appears to have worked for multiple government agencies before her NATO internship.

A CBC News investigation has identified the woman as Biwei Zhang, a systems engineer with a background in economics whose online resume suggests she previously worked for the Canadian Space Agency and Statistics Canada.

Zhang's public and professional profiles match the information Belgian prosecutors provided, which described the suspect as a "Canadian national of Chinese origin" who was an intern at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the military headquarters of NATO in Mons, Belgium.

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Conservatives, Bloc want probe into Canadian NATO intern spying allegations

Conservative and Bloc MPs have called for an emergency meeting of the House of Commons public safety committee to probe espionage allegations against a Canadian former intern arrested by Belgian authorities on suspicion of espionage.

"These allegations are deeply concerning and raise serious questions about Canada's national security screening processes," Conservative MP Frank Caputo said in a statement on Thursday.

"Parliament must determine whether there were gaps in Canada's security screening system and whether those gaps could have exposed sensitive information or put the security of Canada and our allies at risk."

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Gaps in Canada's security screening? Any country that proclaims itself "multicultural" is announcing itself as a banquet for any and all countries with a greater degree of cultural integrity to swoop down and prey upon at leisure.

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What did she see? The intelligence scramble to retrace an accused spy's footsteps

Several Western intelligence agencies were sent scrambling this summer to figure out what — if anything — of value an accused Canadian spy managed to access during internships at multiple agencies and government departments.

Biwei Zhang, a Canadian intern at NATO military's headquarters in Mons, Belgium, was arrested by Belgian authorities in July on suspicion of espionage and communicating with a foreign crime entity. She has been held in pretrial detention since being taken into custody and was this week denied an appeal for release.

Belgian justice and security officials have released very little information and have even declined to name her. A CBC News investigation, in late July, identified her through open-source records and established that over the past decade, she had hopped between high-profile organizations.

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