UK To Introduce Life Sentence For Espionage - Reports

The United Kingdom will increase maximum punishment for espionage from 14 years to life under new legislation aimed at modernizing the country's outdated counterintelligence rules, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday, citing Home Secretary Priti Patel

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th May, 2022) The United Kingdom will increase maximum punishment for espionage from 14 years to life under new legislation aimed at modernizing the country's outdated counterintelligence rules, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday, citing Home Secretary Priti Patel.

Patel wrote an article for The Telegraph introducing key priorities of the UK government's Queen's Speech legislative program, announced last week.

"The Bill will, for the first time, make it an offence to be a covert foreign spy on our soil. We will introduce a new foreign interference offence, to disrupt illegitimate interference activity conducted for, or on behalf of, foreign states. A new sabotage offence will be brought in to more effectively respond to state-backed attacks on the sites, data or infrastructure critical to the UK's safety and interests," Patel wrote.

In a separate article, The Telegraph wrote that one of the components of the new legislation will be making espionage punishable by life in prison.

Old counterintelligence rules in the UK were "primarily designed to counter the threat from German spies around the time of the First World War," while the new legislation should tackle new forms of foreign espionage which became "even more sophisticated and varied" in recent years, Patel wrote.

The new legislation will also be tackling cyberintelligence and other use of modern technology with the goal of harming the UK, Patel wrote.