US judge blocks release of alleged Beijing agent accused of filming Taiwan leader’s son
Defence had argued the case was based on a ‘single day’ of surveillance and wasn’t proof she would flee, but a federal judge disagreed
They argued that the US government’s case centred on a single day of alleged surveillance in Seattle and was not evidence that she posed a flight risk.
US Magistrate Judge Steve Kim sided with prosecutors, who told him that Zhang’s parents and siblings lived in China and that her brother had a history of working with the Chinese government.
“The alleged surveillance began and ended on a single day, September 1, 2025,” Zhang’s lawyers wrote in a brief opposing her continued detention. The government’s complaint, they said, “charges a single violation” of the unregistered-agent statute arising from that day in Seattle.
