Former CIA officer charged

U.S. authorities on Tuesday charged a former CIA agent with illegally retaining classified information, including the names and phone numbers of undercover U.S. agents. Officials arrested Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, on Monday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Lee appeared in federal court in New York on Tuesday but will face charges in northern Virginia, where the CIA is headquartered. According to court documents, Lee served in the U.S. Army before joining the CIA, serving as a CIA case officer from 1994 to 2007. In 2012, agents searched Lee’s luggage during a trip from Hong Kong to northern Virginia and found two small handwritten books containing information at secret and top secret levels of classification, including the names and numbers of undercover U.S. agents, and locations of some undercover U.S. facilities. He returned to Hong Kong in 2013 after FBI agents questioned him. Although the FBI affidavit made no allegations of espionage against Lee, his trial could shed light on an apparent leak of information in China after Lee left the CIA. Chinese authorities killed or imprisoned more than a dozen CIA informants in China between 2010 and 2012, according to reporting by The New York Times.