A federal court in Boston, United States, this week opened the trial of a professor of nanotechnology at Harvard University, accused of lying to US authorities about his ties to an academic recruitment program in China and of concealing funds he received. of the Chinese government.
The trial of Charles Lieber, former chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Harvard, began on Tuesday (14), with the selection of the jury, and continued this Wednesday (15th), with the initial arguments of the prosecution and the defense of the researcher. The judgment is expected to take at least a week. Lieber pleads not guilty.
According to information from Reuters, Lieber was denounced in January 2020 as part of an offensive by the US Department of Justice to combat economic espionage and theft of research by China.
The prosecution pointed out that, as part of a talent recruitment program, the Wuhan University of Technology has allocated more than US$1.5 million to Lieber to set up a laboratory in China, in addition to payments of US$50,000 per month. and US$ 150,000 annually to cover expenses.
Prosecutors alleged that Lieber lied to investigators about his involvement in the program and also misled Harvard, which in 2019 informed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that the professor was not participating in the program.
Other researchers have been denounced following the Justice Department’s open investigations into academic relations with China. A Tennessee professor’s judgment was overturned; later, the researcher was acquitted. In addition, prosecutors dropped the charges against six other researchers.
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